Las Vegas - 2023 Builders Source Show

13 years after my last trip to Vegas, I’m sittin’ up front on a plane, currently about directly over Chicago, heading back to Sin City.  The building industry expo starts tonight, and my building supply company who I have spent untold millions with over 2 decades, offered me on of 10 spots for their Hudson Valley/Westchester allocation.  The last time I was here, with James Karpowicz, my project manager at the time, was in 2009, and was for the same conference/expo.  Though, at that time the country and perhaps the world, was in a real estate collapse, and Las Vegas was close to the epicenter.  Airports empty, taxi drivers cheap, lap dances cheaper (not that I would know).  This round I go as an industry veteran and I look forward to seeing what it means to me and Catskill Farms this time around.  A few of Builder’s Source (my supply company) executives will be here and it will be good to catch up since few company’s have such a unique journey as mine and some of the guys at Builder’s Source have seen it from the inside out, which not too many people can say - which gives us a lot to talk about.

You often hear about corporate good will trips bestowed on valued clients, but I haven’t seen much of that even though I’ve literally put tens of millions of dollars in people’s pockets.  Must be one of those things like finding a good lawyer quick that just doesn’t happen in real life.  Or maybe it used to happen like in Mad Men days and just doesn’t anymore.  Not mentioning any names ERIC G———n.  Just kidding.

I often talk about how my business journey has been one without peer support just because Sullivan County NY didn’t really have anyone doing something like I was doing, and that was true when we expanded into Ulster, and then Dutchess as well, though it came closer the more east I explored opportunities.  No real builder’s association, chambers of commerces (at the time), and I probably could have no doubt could have benefited from a few more sounding boards as I wandered the path of a small businessperson.

Vegas no doubt will be fun, but only to a degree - my efforts of debauchery these days start and end with maybe a few extra drinks and some pre-midnight revelry.  Leave it to the Builders- legendary early risers - to have the grand buffet breakfast from the hours of 6-8am.

Coach K of Duke fame is one of the speakers, and Jim Gaffigan is one of the entertainers.  Should be a good show, for one of the most vital and fundamental and foundational industries in the country.  When the building industry sneezes, the whole country catches a cold.  Especially interesting time to be here because of the place the economy is - just getting off a 2 year pandemic fueled sugar high, now a return to a new normal, and in some parts of the country a real retrenchment of the industry due to interest rates.  One thing for sure is there will be dozens of companies that represent each layer of the economy right now - some prosperous, some in pain, some in retreat, some in advance.

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