Building Maine Businesses #294

Melissa Smith:

The simplest version is everyone we do business with is a business in some way, shape or form. And what we're trying to do is take where where payment technology and data intersect. That's a place that we create value

William J. Ryan:

and everybody feels like they know him. You know, those guys usually sit with me and somebody will walk by and say, danny, I saw you play in this that game and you know, and it's really personal and really important to that person to express to the athlete or ex athlete, you know, how much they love watching them Play.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 294, Building Maine Businesses, airing for the first time on Sunday, May 7, 2017. Business is booming in Maine. Today we speak with two individuals who are leading the way in this field. Melissa Smith is the president and CEO of wex, which is one of three companies in our state to have revenues of more than a billion dollars. William J. Ryan Jr. Is the principal owner and chairman of the Maine Red Clause, Portland's NBA development team. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

With summer now upon us, I invite you to join us at the kennebunkport Festival. Five days of celebrations centered around food, wine, art, music and of course, community. This year's festival is June 5th through 10th and we're especially excited to note that Love Maine Radio's producer Spencer Albee and his band are headlining the Maine Craft music festival with special guests the Ghosts of Paul Revere. For tickets to the Maine Craft music festival and details about all the good times waiting for you at the Festival, go to kennybunkportfestival.com all of us at Maine Media Collective look forward to seeing you there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

it's my great pleasure today to speak

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

with Melissa Smith, who is the president

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

and CEO of Wex, located in South Port. Don't often get to do a husband and wife separate interviews, but I interviewed Brian Corcoran, your husband, back in May of 2015. So now I feel like we're just, like, doing the full circle, the whole family thing.

Melissa Smith:

And he had a great time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Oh, I'm glad to hear that.

Melissa Smith:

No, he did. He had a great time. He appreciated the interview and had fun.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I love the fact that the both of you. So yeah, welcome in, by the way. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for taking very time out of your very busy schedule because I know that that's, you know, time is at a premium these days given all that's going on in your life. So I think I'm most interested in what WEX actually does. I've done a lot of reading on your company, and I am very impressed with the numbers. You just hit a billion dollars, which is amazing. You're one of three companies that we know of within the state. There's Cards, Financial, there's Travel, there's Health.

Melissa Smith:

There's a bunch of urban legends around what WEX does. Okay, good. I think it's kind of funny, Rob and I were talking about that recently, about all the different ways that people think we do business. But I guess to make it the simplest version is everyone that we do business with is a business in some way, shape or form. And what we're trying to do is take where payment technology and data intersect. That's a place that we create value, and it's probably easiest to give examples of it. So if you were to go online, you were to book a hotel room, and you were to book that with Priceline or Expedia or any, virtually any online travel agency, you would pay that hotel with your consumer credit card. But when all the hotels in the world get paid, they're paid behind the scenes with a virtual card that's generated by wax. And so in that case, what we're doing, we're integrated into the online travel agency's systems in a way that creates a lot of efficiency for them. When they make a payment because often a consumer is paying them two or three months in advance. When you go there, you may have a bad experience and you want to actually get a refund of your money. And so for them to track that created a mass of people. And what we did is we went in and said, there's a simpler way of doing that. Let's do that all electronically behind the scenes. And that's a part of our business that has grown tremendously over the last 10 years. So that's one example. Other examples for us, if you were the federal government, if you're an employee with the federal government and you have a vehicle that you're using for commercial purposes, then you would have a wex card. And that wex card would enable you to buy fuel. And there would be a series of controls around that that would make sure that you weren't filling up your family car. And depending on who that customer is. And some of those are really small businesses, some are really big businesses, they want higher levels of controls and sophistication. And what we try to do is tailor that to whatever the customer wants. And then another example, if you are working for a company and you have a tax deferred account like an HSA account or an FSA account, we provide technology that's used in order for you to track all the expenses that you're using on that account. So everything we're doing is heavily behind the scenes, which is why I think people don't really understand what we do. But at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is just make something that is facilitating payment. We're trying to make that as simple, as easy as possible for the business and so they can focus on growing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is a big evolution from, what was it, the late 1800s when this whole company began as Wright Express and the focus was on coal. It seems like that's a fairly straightforward thing that we can all understand. And now, more than a hundred years later, you're doing something somewhat related in transportation, but in many other ways, not related at all.

Melissa Smith:

It's been a really interesting history if you look back on the company, because I would say we're more of a descendant of ar, right? So family company, Cold Company, and they had. One of the children had an idea which was really how to facilitate an electronic payment. And I think back then when people were paying with fuel, they had all those manual receipts and they just wanted to make that simpler. And that was the original concept. And there was a lot of work that Went in behind the scenes to make sure that you got acceptance. And any of the payment companies like Wax getting acceptance is a really big barrier. And so they spent a number of years. The company was founded in 1983 and then it became venture backed in 1985 and it didn't make money until 1993. And so you might imagine that was like a long period of many different rounds of funding. And then from that point forward from I started in 97 and there were five ownership changes in the next 5ish years. And so a lot of different corporate parents, a lot of different changes at that level. But one of the things that's been great is that this company has continued to grow and thrive despite what was happening and kind of the dramatic backdrop until we went public in 2005. That's when we really say we claimed our independence and we became much more secure in the future of the company.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And this is important to the state

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

of Maine because You currently have 750 Maine people who are employed here. And it's important around the world because you have 2,700 employees. So all of the things that you just described are making it possible for lots of people to make a living.

Melissa Smith:

Yeah, when I think about the company, one of the things I think a lot about is they've got employees. I have this visual of all the employees that are around the world and then all their families that are attached to them. So we have I think quite a bit of impact. And that's a great responsibility. And the fun part is being in a growth company as you create opportunity to, so you have really the careers of the people that are working there. But as the company continues to grow, and I'm a great example of that, you create opportunity for people. And because it grows, it changes every few years. And so it feels a little bit different. It's the core of the company, who we are. I'd say it's very similar to it has been in 20 years. But when we went public that made us very different. And when we became global, that made it very different. And I would say in steps, when we first went into something that was global, it was in Australia. English speaking, time zone differences, but not a huge difference. But now we're doing business. And throughout Europe we have an office in Singapore, we have an office in Brazil where you get into countries that are not English speaking as their primary language. And it changed the fiber of the business and the company, but also made it richer. So think of as an employee, you get to now work with people all over the world, and you experience things in a different way, which I think is a really additive way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's interesting that this was happening with WEX at the same time as we were all becoming aware of this whole global citizenship idea, that what your company has gone through is really kind of reflective of the changing times.

Melissa Smith:

Yeah, I think that's true. I think you can get insular in many ways when you think about what you see every day as the best. And then you can go into a totally different market where people experience life in a very different way way. When you go into Brazil, safety is really experienced in a different way. The people that live there, and as a result, their products are built with that much more forefront than their mind. And so I think it's interesting, as you go from one region to another, you realize that the United States, while it's very important, it's not the same experience that's happening around the world. And yet at the same time, you're competing really, in many ways on a global basis. And it's something that I think is really important. We have offices in 10 different countries. We have 37 offices. And so when we think about how we compete for talent, we think about it globally. We think about Maine and how it competes on a global level and how important that is, because the companies that we're competing against are global companies, and they can shift employees into different regions of the world or really pick up on innovation in different parts of the world in a way that we also have to be thinking about. So I think of that as a big positive, but also something that we have to be more thoughtful about as we've gotten bigger and gone into more of that global world.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And your husband, Brian Corcoran, his Shamrock Sports, also has definitely national and perhaps really international interests as well. So that's an interesting thing. I mean, they're different types of industries, certainly, and his is a smaller business, but it must create lots of kind of fascinating conversations in that.

Melissa Smith:

Yeah, dinner conversations are probably different than most people's. Yeah, I think what Brian does is so fascinating to me, probably because it's so very different. You know, he. Most people don't think about the business of sports, and that's the world that he lives in. And at the same time, he gets to experience these really fun events. And so there's a fun part of what he does. There's a really hard part of what he does because his business is largely about selling, and that's a difficult part of the business to be in. But at the same time, he gets to go to some pretty amazing events, and I've been able to go to some of those with him. And so we've been able to go to the Olympics in London and I've been to the Kentucky Derby and I can go on and on. And different things we've done over the years that we've been together. What he likes about that is the pride in the event because at the end of the day, someone is deciding to sponsor that and you want to make sure that the people who go are entertained, that they have a good experience. And often these are world class events. And one of the things that he's been passionate about is bringing some of those to Maine, which has been a great way to create economic development.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You grew up in a pretty small town.

Melissa Smith:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm not really sure even where it is because it's right on the map, because I read the name of it and I was like, oh, I've been to the county a lot. So where did you grow up?

Melissa Smith:

So I grew up in Wynmain, which is about an hour north of Bangor. It's in Penobscot county, but the northern part of Penobscot County. And I grew up on a farm. So, you know, middle of nowhere. I think there were 450 people in my hometown. There's no traffic lights. Everybody knows everybody. It's a great place to grow up. We grew up with animals, so we had horses and dogs and cats and rabbits and you name it. And I think some of the things you learn from growing up in a small town, you learn the importance of community because everybody has to really participate. There really isn't an option. And I also think that growing up in that part of Maine, there's a lot of poverty there. And I think that's in many ways a good way to grow up. And it's going to sound wrong, but I think I grew up very grounded in what you need and what you want and that those are two different things in life. And the people that I grew up with are incredibly happy, fulfilled, and that's without lots of material things. And I think that is an important part now, living in Southern Maine, it's in many ways a very different experience than the Maine that I really understood and grew up with. When he first started

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

and there were three of you, three kids?

Melissa Smith:

Well, so I come with one of those non traditional families and so there are three girls and my mother married somebody. My mother remarried when I was five and she married someone who had five children. And so we were the Brady Bunch. And so three of his children, his three younger ones and us three girls lived together. His two, two older ones were old enough on their own that they didn't ever live with us. And so there were six kids and like I said, all kinds of animals. And it was. I'm used to chaos in my life. That's why I'm pretty good with chaos. But again, great. And my stepfather was a very important part of my life. He had unfortunately passed away a little over a year ago. But, you know, he's been in my life since I was 2 years old. And so, you know, really, he's been the rock in my life. And he also taught me how important it is how men treat women because he was so great to my mother. He adored her, which was a wonderful thing to see growing up.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I would guess that in addition to the small town sense of community, growing up in a household of six, there's also. And you said you grew up on a farm.

Melissa Smith:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So there's. There's shared responsibilities sort of all the way around.

Melissa Smith:

Yes. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. My mother had this philosophy on children your only child wants. And so she had this balance of giving us a lot of freedom to have fun. And at the same time, there was this kind of stick of responsibility that was always in the background, but she wanted to make sure that there were some of each. And so we all had responsibilities. And there's things like as a family, we would bring in hay every year. And bringing in hay meant I drove a big, huge old hay truck when I was literally just old enough to see over the wheel. And what I learned from that is you dump the hay truck, you had to reload it yourself. And so you learned pretty quickly that you had to do it well, otherwise you're going to redo it. And then when the next sibling got to that point, you. You kind of get kicked out. And then you had to actually load the truck. And so you had this kind of order of how things happened. And we learned pretty quickly to really bring all our friends with us and make it into a big party. And so you made the work as fast and as easy as possible and fun. And so there's things like that, bringing in wood. There were rites of passage, I guess, if you will, part of living there that you all had to contribute. But we also get to ride horses and, you know, do a lot of fun things. And so it wasn't all work.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did the University of Maine prepare you academically to do what you're doing now, That's a great question.

Melissa Smith:

My mother went to the University of Maine. My grandmother went to the University of Maine. Ironically, they went about the same time. And so when it came for me to go to school, I would say my first economic lesson was my mother sitting down and saying, honey, you can go to school anywhere you want in the world, and let's do the math. Or you could go to the University of Maine. But my mom worked there, and so I could go relatively inexpensively. And I think at the time that I was interested in spreading my wings a little bit more, became more of a financial consideration. But I feel like I got a really great education. And I think for me, one of my first classes when I first went there, I knew I wanted to study business, but I didn't know really what that meant because you don't get a lot of exposure when you grow up in a small town of what the options even are. And my first year, I was taking some accounting classes, and I used to get these notes back from the accounting professor that would say, you should consider this to be your major. And I thought, how boring is that? You know, like, accounting, really. And then he started talking to me, and he started talking to me about what public accounting was like and how that's different, and you actually get to go and travel and see how different companies work. And he kind of led me there in many ways over a series of a few years. So even though I went to a school that has a large number of students, it didn't feel that way in many ways. And I think that I was really lucky. He became one of my first mentors and really had a lot to do with what I chose to do and really setting me into going into public accounting, which I feel like was a really good experience. And I would advocate that for any child growing up, because you learn almost immediately, you learn how to deal with people because you have to deal with customers. You're sent out into the field, and you work with customers. You work with different peers constantly, and you almost immediately start supervising. It's within the first couple of years. And so then you learn how to actually understand that not everybody's the same. And their ability to learn and how they're going to succeed is very different. And you have to, in order for you to be successful, you have to be able to really adapt to their individual needs. And so I feel like that was a really good experience for me just out of school. But I think University of Maine actually heavily prepared me for that and I felt like some of that was the experience I had with one of my professors.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been a big proponent of early and well done STEM education within the state of Maine and education in general. Is this because you just generally have a love of the state of name? Is this because you have more a concerted interest in getting people to be highly educated so that you can get them into WEX or both?

Melissa Smith:

It's both. I care. STEM related fields are interesting to me because I understand how much more earnings capacity you create if you go into one of those fields. And there's a practicality associated with going into those fields that sometimes feels like it's missing. And at the same time, WEX as an employer is heavily dependent on our ability to track talent in those fields. And so the jobs that we're adding will add over 100 in Maine this year will be largely STEM related. So they're either going to be in the technology areas, some of them in the finance areas. And so I think it's important, I also think that as we compete for talent globally, that Maine has to really think about how we transform our ability to really develop talent, which starts with education and then retain talent. I think it's. It's a big issue for us and it's something that we see as we're out into the marketplace. And so there's a little bit that's a passion point for me around making sure that. Just making sure that the state is thriving. It's really important to me. It's been a great state to grow up in. I feel like I've gotten a lot of benefit for living here and I want to make sure I get back to that. But also there's the more practical part of it as an important headquartered here. There's certain disadvantages and I want to make sure that we really do something about that. And I feel like we have so much opportunity there. We are located central to one of the largest economies in the world with the whole Boston hub. We have a great quality of life. When I go out into the marketplace and recruit people to come live here, people are increasingly interested in what we have to offer. And when they come and live here, they never go back. I have yet to have someone come and relocate here and say I made a mistake, I want to move my family away from here. It's the opposite. I really have roots here. And often what I'll hear, I'd say almost universally when they bring children, they talk about how it just creates a settling feeling. Not that they're not going to have high expectations in their school, but they lose a little bit of the social pressure that they're having in some other regions. And so at Wechs, I feel like we work just as hard as if they were someplace else, but they spend less time commuting and so they have a higher quality of life as a result. So there's a lot to offer in this state and I think in Portland in particular is. Has really just blossomed in the period of time that I've lived in this area.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So the issue of children is interesting because you just came back or are transitioning back.

Melissa Smith:

I'm back.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You're back.

Melissa Smith:

You're back.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You're here

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

from the birth of your twins.

Melissa Smith:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And your son Baxter is now two.

Melissa Smith:

Two and a half.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Two and a half, yes. So you have currently 11 week old twins.

Melissa Smith:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And Baxter.

Melissa Smith:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So the idea of family and raising a family in a family friendly atmosphere is very important to you. Do you think it's easier to have the type of partnership that you have with your husband in the state of Maine or in this part of the world than it might be in other places?

Melissa Smith:

Well, definitely, when you broaden it to the world, I think that we're lucky in many ways to live in the United States. I feel lucky as a woman to live in the United States and actually in Maine to have the career that I have. I feel like that's a piece of it. I think that Brian is a great partner and he enables me to do what I need to do and vice versa. You know, we really think of this as a partnership and how we're going to help each other out. And at the same time, we rely pretty heavily on our extended family. Now. We're very lucky. My mother, as an example, stayed here for the winter. She would normally go to Arizona for the winter. And so she's been forefront working with us. His parents are very actively involved and so we hear relying on the nucleus of our family and that's been important. But I don't know if I were to say Maine versus some other part of the country, I don't know that that's different. I do think there's a little bit of benefit as a moment in my career of being in Maine. And I think that there's a little bit of that independence thing that we have here that I think plays well into that. But I certainly do think if I compare other places in the world I could be living, this is a much more beneficial place and also think Maine is one of those places that allow independence, which helps Brian with his business. And so I think that there's probably a whole series of things coming together that are helpful to us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I understand that you just instituted a family leave for eight weeks, paid after the birth of a child within Wechs, correct me if I'm wrong.

Melissa Smith:

Six weeks.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Six weeks, yes. Okay.

Melissa Smith:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Still very generous. Yes, exactly. So what prompted that?

Melissa Smith:

I feel like it's in the category do the right thing. When I started looking at the ways that that leave is considered around the world, it's a place that the United States is largely lagging compared to the rest of the developed world. And so it felt like a trend that was coming to us. And I'd rather be on the front part of that trend because again, I just feel like it's the right thing to do. And for us, the fact that we're giving leave out and we're agnostic, if it's the male or the female partner, whatever it happens to be that we wanted to make sure that we're thoughtful about that and that I felt strongly about too. I wanted to make sure that it wasn't really designed to think about things in an old fashioned way. It was really more representative of the way things work now. And it's been actually great. That's one of those fun parts of my job. When you do something like that and you get notes back from people that give you personal stories about how that decision affected their lives, it's incredibly satisfying. So I think again, we'll see more businesses make that trend over time in the United States. Because I think that we're just lagging with how people think about this on a more global basis.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

For people who are thinking about what their next career step might be, what do you think WEX has to offer?

Melissa Smith:

WEX has so much to offer. You know, I start with the things that the former CEO who actually had recruited me, the things he said to me I think are still true. He said it's the type of place that an individual can make a difference, which was incredibly appealing to me. And that you're performance affects your trajectory. And I think we're at this great stage as a business where we're not so small that we're worried about whether or not we're going to make payroll, but we're not so big, even at a billion dollars of revenue that it's hard to move. And so I like the phase that we're in. I like the global interaction, the jobs that we have. You can really see this coming through our employee satisfaction surveys. They're interesting work that people are doing. They feel like they're making a difference. We have a great culture and our culture is really founded on the idea of not just what you do, but how you do it. And we reward people with we do what we call a president's club trip every year. And we pick this year we pick 45 people. So highly selective, I think 2,700 employees. But 45 people win. Anybody in the company can nominate anybody else, and we pick it based on what they do and how they do it, which means it can all be about sharp elbows that actually have to do things in a more collaborative way. And then we take them and whoever they choose to go with them onto a trip someplace. This year we announced we're going to Portugal. And so I feel like that's embedded in who the company is from a cultural perspective and of a sense been true before I started. And it's part of what I want to make sure that we continue to foster. There really is a relationship orientation in the company that I think is really great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's been a pleasure. I think we could probably fill a few different hours talking about this because I think you're doing really interesting things well.

Melissa Smith:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I really appreciate the time that you're taking to come in and talk to me today and anybody who's listening. I encourage people to look into wex. If that's something that you think would be a good fit in your life,

Melissa Smith:

that'd be www.wexinc.com I love it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's great. And also we will be featuring Melissa in an upcoming issue of Oldport Magazine, so you can also read the profile there. I've been speaking with Melissa Smith, who is the President and CEO of wex Inc. Located in South Portland. Keep up the good work.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you.

Melissa Smith:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

J. Ryan, Jr. Who is the principal, owner and chairman of the Maine Red Claws. I believe it's okay that we call you Bill.

William J. Ryan:

Bill's great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Bill's great. Which held their inaugural season in the fall of 2009. Ryan also has investments in real estate, restaurants, and early stage technology companies. And I believe you also once owned the Oxford Plane Speedway.

William J. Ryan:

I did for 14 years, yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you've been out and about for quite a while.

William J. Ryan:

I can't, I guess, have a short attention span maybe, and move from thing to thing, I guess.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that's all right because we like talking to people who have had many lives here. You've actually been an attorney as well?

William J. Ryan:

Yeah. So I was in college and my parents kept calling me and saying, what are you gonna do with your life? And so one day they woke me up and I said, I'm gonna be a lawyer. And that got smile and approval, and they didn't bother me for the rest of my senior year. So. So that was my well thought out process of how, you know, what my career was going to be. But I actually liked law school. And then when I got out and found out what lawyers actually did, I was kind of puzzled that anybody would actually want to do it. And so I hated it. But I had, I think when I started, my wife was pregnant. We had four kids in five years when I was. When I was doing it. So I kind of needed a job. So I stuck with it till I could figure out what else to do and moved on from there. But it was a good experience. It's good training, it's good background for business. But, you know, it's great for some people. It just wasn't for me. I wish I had thought of that a little bit better before I just made a snap decision to be a lawyer.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, so what was it about being a lawyer that you thought was good training and maybe just didn't work for you?

William J. Ryan:

Yeah, I mean, I think the good training part is you get to spot a lot of potential problems in business before they get to be problems. Right. You can tell going into something, Jesus, contract is not gonna work, or, you know, there's a risk here that could be covered by insurance or, you know, what's. What happens if XYZ happens? You know, how do we. How do we handle that as a business relationship and kind of take care of it beforehand so it doesn't become acrimonious later? You know, if something goes wrong, you want to, You Want to make sure you figure out how to. How to fix that before. Before it becomes a problem. So that was, you know, that's a good training part. What I didn't like is, you know, most of it is it's not very, you know, you're not in a courtroom, you know, arguing, and it's not very glorious. You're mostly in your office selling your time is what you're selling. So it really takes away from interaction with your fellow human beings to some extent. Right. Because if your office mate comes by and says, hey, how you doing? You watch a ball game last night? All you're doing is looking at your watch and going, oh, man, now I gotta stay at work five minutes later because you're selling your time. So you become one of the, you know, eight ate lunch at my desk, you know, and never really left because I had little kids at home. And, you know, I was already working enough that my wife wasn't super psyched to have me be there until, you know, eight at night or something, you know. And so that was the hardest part for me is that, you know, my natural inclination was to care about the people around me and what their lives were and then. But I was selling my time. So I. You know, you'd have to kind of ferret yourself into your little. Your little office and do your work and try to do it as quickly as you could and get it done. But, yeah, so if a lot of people like it, you know, it just wasn't for me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I think that's an interesting point that you make that something can be really worthwhile and worth doing and maybe just not the right thing for an individual person.

William J. Ryan:

Sure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But it takes. Sometimes it's difficult to get to that place and get to the point place where you say, all right, so what is right for me?

Melissa Smith:

So how did you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You know, you still have those children, right. So how did you get to that place?

William J. Ryan:

Yeah, so it was interesting. We represented the firm I was with, represented a guy by the name of Bob Baer. And Bob owned New Hampshire International Speedway at that point, which was a NASCAR track. And I became. I knew Bob a little bit. I didn't work on his stuff, but I knew him through a couple different ways. And from him being at the firm to, you know, from the firm doing work for him, I became fascinated with that business, the racing business. And it wasn't anything I really knew about prior to that. I grew up outside of Boston. There's not a lot of, you know, car racing wasn't big outside of Boston. But I became fascinated with it as a business. And this is the early 90s, kind of before NASCAR is kind of, you know, kind of risen, and now it's kind of fallen back a little bit. But so I decided that that's. I wanted to be in that business somehow. And long. Long story short, I was able to find a guy in Massachusetts who had a sports marketing company and had been heavily involved in racing. And if you've ever seen a race car, they have 28 different names all over them. You know, it's everything from Budweiser to on and on and on. And that was his business. He would. He would act as a middleman between race teams and big companies out there and say, like, you should be on this car because you will get this much notice and you can have your clients come to races. And so I talked my way to a job with him, and the legal training was something that was attractive to him because it's a heavily contractual work. And it was a revelation for me because I came from that highly regulated, highly strict world of law where everything was, you know, you put on a belt and then you put on another belt, and then you put on suspenders, and then, you know, the third belt just for extra, you know, extra safety and support. And I went with him. And he was a real sales guy, and we could do anything. You know, a client would. Or potential client would say, can you do XYZ A, B, C? And his answer was always yes, because he would figure out how to do it. Whereas my answer was, geez, can we do that? You know, like, how are we going to do that? And he's, you know, he kind of introduced me to the world of, yeah, you'll figure it out, you know, and it wasn't. He wasn't being deceptive in any way. He was just much more. More open, open to making things happen. Whereas I was in that world, like, you know, geez, let's check the 92 things that could happen that would be wrong with that plan. Whereas he was like, yeah, that may. There may be 92 things wrong, but there's 120 things that are right. So that was. He was probably a guy by the name of Paul Lufkin. He's probably the most influential person in my life, really, in terms of more business life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you owned Oxford Plains for 14 years?

William J. Ryan:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And then what happened?

William J. Ryan:

Well, during that time frame, I was approached by somebody because I was in the sports business. Was approached by somebody. Just a cold call, a guy that had worked for the Celtics years before and said that he wanted to start a professional basketball team someplace in New England that was going to be in the NBA Development League. And, you know, I hadn't really. To be honest, I was a huge Celtics fan and always have been from growing up outside of Boston, but I wasn't really in tune with what the NBA Development League is. What I did know was two professional basketball teams had failed in Maine before. So I returned the call anyway, you know, and went to a meeting, and I thought it was an interesting idea. The more. The more I learned about it. And, you know, the lawyer in me said, all right, what's the. What's the downside risk? And can we eliminate that? And how do we eliminate it? And if we can't eliminate. You can never eliminate it all, but, you know, how do you mitigate it and make it so it's not gonna, you know, not gonna kill you? And then on the. The other side of. Was like, all right, what's the upside here? You know, what can we do? So after kind of doing that analysis for a bit, I thought it was a good idea. I talked. My father was retiring at that point. He's the ex CEO of TD bank here in Portland, so he was retiring and he liked the idea as a basketball fan. So, you know, he said, all right, you call five of your friends, I'll call five of my friends, we'll put together an ownership group. And so that's what we did. So, you know, my father and I are the majority owners of the team, and we have partners that are people from across, probably people that you've interviewed, you know, people from Maine that are influential in the community. And it's been great. It's been a great experience. We just are finishing our eighth season and starting playoffs tonight, which is fun, but it's been good.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sports is an interesting thing because there's really such a significant community around it. So whether you're part of the Red Sox nation or whether you're a Patriots fan or a Red Claws fan, really, you've automatically got this group of people that you can talk to and you can interact with and that you can have conversations with. Is that part of what attracted you to becoming an owner of the Red Claws?

William J. Ryan:

Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. It is. It's that built in. You know, if you're, you know, when you're at a. When you're at a game, you know, the person next to you, you know, they're a fan. You know, they're probably a fan of the team that, you know, that you're a fan of, and you have that natural ability to talk to them. And I think even when I was in the racing business, you know, there's a. There's a wide demographic for racing. And it's interesting because I, you know, I could talk to anybody from, you know, the guy fixing my car. I know nothing about fixing cars, but a lot of, you know, a lot of guys that fix cars are into cars and stuff, and so, you know, they maybe recognize that me from the speedway or something or. And I could have a long conversation with them about racing. Right. And you have that in common. And I still bump into people all the time that are, you know, that I know from racing that are, you know, just all walks of life. But often something, you know, a delivery driver or something like that, you know, or something like an occupation that has to deal with maybe cars or something. It's always funny because we'll go back to talking about racing and basketball is the same too. You know, it's a different. Has a different demographic, I would say. But, you know, you have that universal language that you can talk about, you know, did you see that game last night? Or, you know, what do you think of the Celtics? What do you, you know, so it is. It's a. It's a community in a lot of good ways and can be in bad ways, too. You know, I think when you're a fan of the Patriots and you hate the fans of, you know, whoever it is, I mean, to me, that's ridiculous. I always kind of. My family's from New York, and they're all Yankee fans, right? So I grew up in Boston, and it would be one of those things, wow, you're supposed to hate Yankee fans. I'm like, I can't hate my grandmother. My grandmother's a Yankee fucking fan, you know, So I never had that, you know, that. That, like, oh, you gotta hate Yankee fans or something, you know, so there's a lot of good to it, but it can be destructive, too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. So. So how do you handle that? I mean, I'm. I have an awareness of sports. My kids are all. They all follow sports. Their dad follows sports. I never had that sort of same passion. So when they would say, you know, oh, Yankees suck. I'd be like, oh, do they? Do you have to be. And I'm sorry to anybody who's listening, who feels strongly that Yankees do.

William J. Ryan:

So.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But how do you negotiate that?

William J. Ryan:

I just, you know, it's kind of silly to me. I think that, you know, you just have to realize that it's just a game at the end of the day. And I think I've. Trust me, I've been caught up in games, you know, whether it's my kids games or Red Claws games or Patriots games. And if my kids listen to this, they'll laugh at me saying that, oh, you know, don't overreact to it, because they've seen me certainly overreact to a lot of games. But I think as, you know, maybe as you get older and you get a little bit wiser and you realize that, hey, you know, if the Red Claws lose tonight, I'm still going to be here tomorrow and get up and do all the things that I do. And sure, I want them to win, but. But it's, you know, life goes on, and I'm much more that way. You know, I was happy when the Patriots won the Super Bowl. Really happy. I'm sure I jumped up and down for a while, but if they had lost, I would have been unhappy for 15 minutes and got up the next day and moved on. So I think you just have to recognize that it's. It's not life and death. It's just. It's just fun. You know, it's talking to people that I've worked with over the years in sports. My. My line to them always is like, we're not curing cancer. You know, we're just. We're just hopefully giving people a night out where they can smile and laugh and have fun and watch a good game or a good race or whatever it is. You know, it's. I don't think it's unimportant, but it's not serious. You know, it's not. It's not. If, you know, if the. If the Red Sox don't play today or do. Or whatever, it really doesn't affect anybody's life. You know, it's not a life and death thing. It's just sports.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, some people might argue, yeah, no,

William J. Ryan:

I know, but some people. No, they do. It's funny. And people expect me to maybe to be more passionate about sports than I am because I've been involved in it. I think maybe through being involved in it, you kind of recognize that, you know, maybe it's. It can be overstated. Its importance can be overstated somewhat. You know, not that it's, you know, it's important to me, but it's. Again, there's a lot of things that are. That are much more important than whether or not the Patriots win. Or the Red Clouds win or the Red Sox win?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Was there something about the fact that your father was so high up at TD bank and that banking is very similar to law that's kind of structured and lots of regulations? Was there something about that that you needed to almost kind of break free of in order to get into these other businesses?

William J. Ryan:

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that was all I was ever exposed to. You know, the rest of my, rest of the adults in my life, you know, my uncles and aunts and stuff, were firefighters and cops and that kind of thing. So I kind of knew I didn't want to go that direction. You know, I'm probably too lazy to be out there doing any kind of heavy duty work like that. So. My father was the only one that I looked to. He's a banker, you know, my whole, my whole life. And it is a very ordered thing. And I've said to him a million times, I don't know how you do it. And I say that to corporate people that I know all the time. Like I just couldn't, you know, and the, the meetings and the, you know, the hierarchy and the. I don't know that that's not me. And maybe it's because I've been kind of out on my own for, for so long on the other side. And, you know, I've never, since I left my law, the law firm I was with in 1997, there's been no paycheck waiting for me at the end of the week. Right. So that's the downside to it. You know, I don't have a boss and I don't have meetings and I don't have, you know, if I don't want them. But again, there's not, you know, there's not that benevolent corporation over my head that's gonna, that's gonna be there at the end of the week whether or not I did my job well that week or didn't do it. You know, you still get that paycheck and there's something to be said for that, you know, but there's. For me, anyway, there's more to be said about, about the freedom that. To do a lot of different things. And luckily it's, you know, I'm knocking on wood here. It's worked out so far, so. But yeah, it is a challenge. I mean, there's certainly, you know, when I had the racetrack, if you, you get three weeks of rain, you can't, you can't race in the rain. Right? So when you have, if you have 40 events scheduled for a summer, and it rains, you know, three weekends in a row, say you could lose, you know, 10% of your opportunity to make money for the year. It's like a, you know, it's like a retail store that's open 365 days, losing 36 days where they make zero money, you know, so it's. It's a challenge to try to figure that out in our world. You know, the Red Claws have. We have 24 home games, you know, so we have 24 opportunities to sell tickets. If it's a blizzard in the middle of February, which we had one. We had one this year. And it was, you know, people don't want to go out, right? It's just. It was fine. But the, you know, the weather, the weather report, you know, everybody, the Storm center, they all got their sweaters on and all that stuff. So everybody's kind of scared. And so, you know, those are tough days because. Because we probably sold half the amount of tickets that we would have had. It been a nicer day. So. Challenges to both sides of things. But, yeah, I certainly. I'll say to my father all the time, like, I don't know how you did it. You know, even the getting up to the top is hard, but even being at the top is of a big company. There's a lot of responsibility. I mean, you have thousands and thousands of people. Like, you make a bad decision, it can really harm a lot of people. You know, there's a lot of pressure there that I don't think think. I don't think people that haven't seen somebody up close in that position recognize. You know, I think people at that level, they really feel like if I make a wrong decision, that's, you know, it doesn't just affect me, it affects all those thousands of people. So I don't know. There's pluses and minuses to both sides. I'd like that steady paycheck if I could get it, but I kind of. I kind of like not having to answer to anybody either.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Given the background of the failure of teams, basketball teams in this area, I'm assuming that Red Claws has done better than that because they're still around.

William J. Ryan:

Absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what have you learned in this process?

William J. Ryan:

You know, I think it was interesting. When we first. When we first started it, the natural inclination for everybody when we're talking to them was, well, you're going to play at the Civic center, right? And that seems like the natural place to play. But we figured out pretty quickly that Teams in our league, you know, average attendance is probably 3,000, maybe 3,500. Well, that gonna feel and look horrible in the Civic center, which is 7200 for basketball, I think. So that was a decision to move to the Expo that was, you know, maybe a little bit challenging or challenge people's preconceptions at the beginning. And, you know, the Expo, you know, but we did a lot of improvements there, and it's a great place, and now people love watching the team play there. So maybe, you know, that's, I think, an example of kind of what we learned and what we did was to maybe not jump at the obvious thing, you know, where it was. Well, you got to play here, you got to do this, you got to do that. We. We kind of looked at it and said, well, wait a second, how do we mitigate that downside risk? Right? How do we make sure that if we go someplace that's just an example, if we go to a place that's too big for us and it doesn't look right and fans don't love it. Well, you know, how do we mitigate that risk? We'll play at a smaller place, you know, where even if you have 1500 people in the Expo, which is half full ish, it still feels great, you know, it still feels. It's got a good atmosphere. Kids love it. And, you know, you get Crusher, our mascot, running around and all that. So that was. I think what we learned was like, just look at things a little bit differently and try to figure out, like, why have teams failed here and other places? And, you know, how do you. How do you make sure that you. You. You don't fail in the same way? Right? You could fail in a different way. That's always. But don't fail in the same way. And, you know, I think the big difference for us was having the NBA attached to our league. The other. The other leagues have been independent, didn't have, you know, those three letters are hugely important. The NBA has a huge fan base, not only here in Maine and. But around the world, really. So having that, you know, that attachment to the NBA and then the affiliation with the Boston Celtics, right. People love the Celtics here and. Which is great, you know, and the fact that, you know, the Celtics general manager Danny Ainge will come and, you know, come up three or four times a year and sit at the, you know, sit at center court and watch the games, and people love seeing him. And we had Brian Scalabrini, who's an ex Celtic, who, you know, does announcing now, and he was here a week or two ago. And again, sitting courtside and watching. People love that stuff. They feel that connection, you know, that, that like. And everybody feels like they, they know him. You know, those guys usually sit with me and somebody will walk by and say, danny, I saw you play in this, in that game. And, you know, and it's really personal and really important to that person to express to the athlete or ex athlete, you know, how much they love watching them play. And people love that. You know, our players come from all the big time colleges, so if you're a Michigan grad, say, eventually we've had guys from Michigan and people love that too. You know, they'll come up to them before the game or after the game and say, oh, I went to University of Michigan and wasn't, you know, I saw this game or that game. So it's, it's interesting. But yeah, so I think the biggest thing we learned was like, figure out how to mitigate all our downside risk to avoid failing in some of the ways that other teams had before.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So the way you're describing this is that there's this really significant emotional component to sports, which, of course, we all know that sports can make you feel passionate. But, you know, as you're describing, you know, Danny Ainge, and I remember watching him play a million years ago. You know, there's an.

William J. Ryan:

It's like he doesn't appreciate that when you say million years ago.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I feel like I'm old enough now that it probably was a million years ago. Sorry, Danny. But so, but it's almost like having a song that you knew when you were in seventh grade that you danced to at the junior high dance, you know, that it becomes locked into you in a way that. Or, you know, remembering who you watched during, you know, the Winter Olympics. And so you're providing people not only with this community of the present, but you're connecting them to kind of themselves in the past. Does that come up for you?

William J. Ryan:

No, absolutely, you're right. I think when people come up to Danny and tell them about watching him play or this game or that game, it's funny because you can see grown men or grown women who revert back to being 10 years old because that was when they saw. We've had Tommy Heinson come up, another former Celtic and Hall of Famer and announcer, and you get people that are 60 years old that saw him play, or maybe even older than that because he's in his 80s, and they get like, oh, you know, they get emotional and almost like kids and revert back. So there is, there is a lot of that, A lot of that looking back towards. Towards the past. And. Yeah, so it's interesting. And I, again, I'm not the guy who can tell you who the backup point guard for, for, you know, the University of Iowa was last year, but we have people that can, you know, that are fans, and when they see, you know, the backup point guard for the University of Iowa somehow make a team in our league, you know, they'll say, I remember that. You know, they get very enthusiastic about it. And so, yeah, there is a. There is a lot of emotion attached to it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have four children, all. You said 18 to 23.

William J. Ryan:

18 to 23, yeah, exactly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So they're right in that interesting range where they're. Where you could theoretically call them, wake them up and say, hey, what are you going to do with your life?

William J. Ryan:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what would you like to see happen with them?

William J. Ryan:

Yeah, because of kind of the life that I've led where I did something that I thought I was supposed to do initially. Like, it seemed like, well, you got to do something like law. Right. And I was really unhappy. I don't know if I expressed that, but, like, when I say unhappy, like, my headache started the second I got to the office, like every day, you know, and didn't. Twelve hours later, it, you know, didn't go away. So I've always told them, you know, it's kind of one of these cliche things, but I actually really feel strongly that I want them to be able to support themselves but. But have, you know, have fun and enjoy what they're doing. You know, life's too short to, you know, do something you don't want to do. Now we all, we obviously, we all have to do things we don't want to do. You know, it's not all, you know. You know, it's not all happiness every day at whatever your job is. But, you know, I'll give you an example. My son's the only one out of college yet, and he got very interested in the whole craft beer world a couple of years ago. So I'm like, great, you know, and I put him in touch with some people and he wound up working, you know, for a couple local places here. And now he's down in Boston and works for a place called Trillium Brewing. And he's in production. Right. So he's up every morning, morning at 4 or 5am to, to get there, to make the beer, basically, is what he's doing. And so he just graduated from Colby in, in May of last year. So my, my joke is to him is like, well, you know, spend about 260 or so thousand dollars on your education. You work at a factory. But I'm, it's not, I'm happy for him. Like, that's cool. Like in the education, you know, he was a philosophy major, right. So nothing goes better with philosophy than a couple beers. Right? You sound smarter after a couple beers. Everybody. Every philosophy is better. And so, but I think that's, you know, he loves it. You know, he's supporting himself. And so I think that's been my message to them is to, don't think you have to do. You don't think you have to be a lawyer because that's the only way you can be successful. There's a lot, a lot of paths to success. And if you're, if you can be happy along the way, that's a, that's a much better thing than, you know, than just to be a cog and cog in some kind of wheel that you don't want to be a cog in.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think that's fair. It's okay to be a cog in the wheel as long as you want

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

to be a coug in the wheel.

William J. Ryan:

Yeah, if you want to be a cog. Right. Like I said, there's, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of people that, when I was practicing law that loved it and loved it for good reasons. You know, they could, they could just leave it at the end of the day. Right. It wasn't, you know, and that's the other downside. I've been in a lot of different businesses in addition to the sports business, but I've had my phone in my pocket from the time I get up till the time I go to bed for the last 20 years and have, and get calls at 11 o' clock at night saying not so much now, but, but still now, even, even with the Red Claws, like, we had a travel issue, like where the team is stuck in, you know, Iowa, and we got to figure out, like, what do you want us to do? Like the, you know, the flights out of here. We can get this one flight out of here, but it's, you know, an extra 500 bucks a person kind of thing, and we're flying 15 guys around. And so I still get those calls. And then I've had, you know, I've had businesses like that for a long time, so it's never there. Is a there is something to be said for if you can, you know, you leave work at work at 6 o' clock and I think that's a lot of people, you know, that I worked with at the law firm felt like that, you know, you weren't going to get that call. So. But you know, it's interesting. It makes life interesting, I guess.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I know that you are a very busy person, so I really appreciate your coming in and having this conversation with me. Today I learned something about the Red Claws, probably a little bit of something about racing, which honestly I didn't know anything about. I've been speaking with William J. Ryan Jr. Also known as Bill, the principal owner and chairman of the Maine Red Claws and also generally involved in many other different industries. So I I really appreciate your having this conversation with me.

William J. Ryan:

Thanks. It was a lot of fun.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to Love Maine radio show number 294, building Maine businesses. Our guests have included Melissa Smith and William J. Ryan Jr. For more information about Melissa Smith, read this month's issue of Old Port magazine. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our E Newsletter and like our LoveMain Radio Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter as DRLISA and see our LoveMain Radio photos on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of lovemain Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Man Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Building Maine Businesses show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.