ITT 239: From Steel Mill to Capitol Hill with Robert Ordway

Speaker A: Welcome back, everyone, to another broadcast of in the Trenches. Today I'm sitting down with my good friend Robert Ordway, who is a senior policy advisor for a US Senator and an owner of the image consulting company Rusted Oak. He's an entrepreneur, a family man, a good dude. We've hung out together at Menfluential. Uh, it's been a few years since we've caught up. Time has really flown. I think the last time was 2020. So, Robert, thanks for being on in the Trenches.

Speaker B: Hey, Tom, thanks for, um, having me on your, uh, podcast. And it kind of reminds me of some of the folks I've seen here in Washington, D.C. where you have that conversation. We're like, hey, I saw you six months ago. And they're like, no, it was 2019 before COVID I feel like there was a bit of a black hole of a time warp. And, you know, if you recall, Menfluential Conference was literally two weeks before COVID became a national emergency. And so, you know, we saw each other at kind of the last point of civilization. Until now.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, yeah, totally kind of trippy when you think about it, because that was the weekend when they were, like, shutting everything down. I'm like, well, um, I guess I got my last, you know, flight out of this, my last event. So a good way to close it down. And that was for Antonio and, um, uh, for those guys. It was going to be their last event anyway, which is a bummer. I think they should bring it back now. But it kind of worked out perfectly.

Speaker B: Yeah, totally. And what was interesting for me is that I did come home and I did have the flu. That was March 1st when I spoke. Flew back from Atlanta, was sick for two or three days. Pretty, pretty, you know, in bed, fever. And, you know, I'll never know if that was actually covet or not, but, you know, my barbell coach, Matt Reynolds, you know, barbell logic gives feedback within 24 hours of your workouts. And it was the first time Matt didn't respond or have someone cover. And, you know, a couple days later, he texted me. He's like, hey, dude, I'm in a hospital with COVID and double pneumonia. I'm like, patient zero for the state of Missouri. And I was. It was. It was wild, you know, and so we went from you great time to him being, uh, you know, hospitalized. Obviously, he's much better now, but it was just a wild kind of turn of events, if you will.

Speaker A: Yeah. And, uh, obviously a lot of repercussions since then. I Mean, I'll tell you what, at least personally, I was like, oh, you know what? This is actually great for me because I didn't really much, uh, anyway, I did events very rarely. Obviously, I would do it for Antonio and those guys, and I would speak at a handful of things. But really, since then, it really benefited me in many ways. As obnoxious as the whole thing. Thing was, for a couple years there, it was like, everything's going online. Well, I'm already working online, so I was able to kind of like, kind of just go with it. But it was this kind of strange time warp where now I'm like, oh, it's 2024 almost, I guess, going into 2025. But as of this recording, mid 2024, and it's felt like, uh, yeah, I. It's. There's like this, what happened the last few years. But I know for you, you were, I believe you were already in the US Senate in 2020, is that correct?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And you were running your business as well at the same time, right?

Speaker B: Right. Yeah. I moved to Washington, D.C. in January of 2017, had a few different jobs, and was called into the Senate for my home state of Indiana in January of 2019. I had wanted to go to what was called Men's Style Con since it was formed because I knew Brock McGough, the modest man, being a 57 guy, you know, obviously knew of his website, and we had interactions and I wanted to go in like, 2014, 15, 16, and just never made it happen. But once I moved to D.C. in 17, I'm like, you know what? I'm going. And so the first time, uh, I was a guest, um, but then quickly, in 18 and 19, I sat on panels. And then the last one, I had my own solo presentation, uh, in 2020, um, but I was in the Senate, um, since 19, so a few of those conferences, I was kind of wearing two hats at once.

Speaker A: So, yeah, let's. Let's go back in time and then we'll get caught up to what you're doing now on the entrepreneurial side of things, on the policy and like, political side of things, which is super interesting. I don't think I've actually had anybody on the podcast before who's done that, so that'll be kind of interesting. I have some questions to ask and how that all works.

Speaker B: We're going to talk about politics. You have to have whiskey, right?

Speaker A: That's right. But, uh, let me. Let's start at the beginning. Like, go, go back in time. You were telling me A few things before we hit record about your family. So, again, whatever you feel comfortable sharing. But I'd like to go back to when you were younger, kind of where you're from and what led you into some of the things that you're doing today. A little bit of that backstory.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, um, you know, my family are, um, you know, Southern migrants from Kentucky that came up to Gary, Indiana in the late 1950s, if you're familiar with the industry. I mean, the steel industry is the home of, it is north of Cindy and now. But There were about 200 mills, you know, 50, 60 years ago that have all been consolidated. And so, um, my granddad migrated up and ultimately my dad worked in the steel mills. I was told that was not an option. And deindustrialization, uh, continues to this day. Essentially. I grew up in a very hardscrabble, blue collar community union family. And, uh, you know, graduating high school in, um, 2003 was unique. I think the challenge for me was, you know, at the age of 13, my dad was diagnosed with ALS. That was 1998. And there were no assistive technologies for those people. You were Stephen Hawking. Not really many therapy or kind of, um, groups to talk through things, the people who are living your experience. And then, um, you know, no, no medical treatments. I think one was approved back in the 90s, but really didn't do a whole lot to help those folks. So felt like my dad was given a death sentence and my sister was only nine at the time. It was really challenging because my mother had bipolar disorder. And so there's a lot of challenges on the, on the mental side there. And so, um, very fortunate for me, you know, the war in Iraq started in 03. I had done really well in this test called the asvab because of my blue collar upbringing. Electrical, mechanical, wood shop. It had a, had a lot of unique components that I really enjoyed compared to other standardized tests like the SATs. Essentially, all four branches were calling me, trying to recruit me. I was what's called a dep, a delayed entry program. You can't sign a contract at 17, but you kind of can make a verbal commitment, essentially. Um, but all that changed when my mom went away to the war in Iraq in March of 03. A month later, I got something called the Eli Lilly Endowment Scholarship, which is a full ride to anywhere in the state of Indiana. The drug company was really concerned about the brain drain. And so in the late 90s, they started these scholarships in all 92 counties. By some happenstance, I Received one of these scholarships that changed my life trajectory. I started life at Purdue. Dad passed away a few months later. Ended up transferring up to Valparaiso University, which is about an hour from Chicago. And, um, you know, the next big thing that happened was I switched from engineering to finance. And finance was a great degree to have from 03 to 07 while I was in college. Not a good degree when I graduated. So I finished in December 07 in. The entire tail of the market just fell out. Right? So I would have had a better career having a degree in underwater basket weaving than finance. And so essentially, uh, uh, through 2008, it was a bit of a struggle. I had moved to Chicago. I worked in the Chicago Board of Options Exchange, and, um, ultimately found myself at the beginning of 09 in grad school back at Valpo, studying basically public policy. And on my third day, that's when my mother took her own Life. And so from 09 to present, my life has consisted of running political campaigns, being a civil servant or a political appointee, also kind of working for entrepreneurs, being an entrepreneur. So I've kind of touched a lot of different worlds at once, you know, um, but, you know, my parents, you know, kind of having that little tough upbringing, I think there's a silver lining in adversity, um, how it, you know, it takes fire to temper the sword. And so, you know, my goal is to help share with others how to build personal agency so that they can overcome challenges in life.

Speaker A: When did you from. From that point, um, again, in the finance world, kind of going through those things, like, when did you. When did you go the entrepreneurial route and how did you know that was the right thing to do?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's interesting. Um, you know, my mom wasn't always the most truthful person about my upbringing. And, um, a few years after my dad passed away, I had all these, uh, essentially thoughts that he was not my biological father. Just certain things about my early childhood didn't make sense. I was kind of a vagabond between Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana. Lived with my mom's sister. I live with my dad's parents in Kentucky after they migrated back south after he retired, after Pap hall retired from U.S. steel. And, you know, eventually I was able to get my family to kind of come clean about who my biological father was, and I end up meeting him within months after. It's amazing with the Internet. So between, you know, December 07, when I graduated in February 08, is the time that I learned about a biological father. But he Was a two star rear admiral in the Navy. But more importantly, his father was a PhD in electrical engineering and launched the largest IPO up until Google. And he's deemed to be Dallas's most successful venture capitalist. He was pitching General Motors on electric vehicles in the early 90s and people, you know, were kind of poo pooing it. So kind of a visionary. And so I think to some degree, the entrepreneurship component is in my blood. Um, I think when you meet your biological predecessors, what you find out is that, you know, both of them are engineers. I was going to be an engineer. We're all very good at math. Moving from a poor community, East Gary Lake Station, where I grew up in northwest Indiana, uh, I moved to Valparaiso for, for college. And I ended up living there off and on for about 14 years. It was founded in the 1850s by farmers in the. The university, which actually it was called the Valparaiso Men's and Women's College. It was admitting women, gosh, 60 years before they had the right to vote. And it's just, it's very, it's, it's founded by old German stock and they're very, very entrepreneurial. So after my dad passed away, all the other men that kind of filled that void in college and beyond were all business owners, all very entrepreneurial. As I, uh, and as I got involved in the political world, it was something I desired of trying to be the captain of your own ship, even if it's just a rowboat.

Speaker A: So. Yeah, man. Wow. Okay. So you went through a lot at a pretty young age, I guess. How do you deal with all that? I mean, finding out. So did you have suspicions? You, you, like, what was your dad like, who raised you? And then finding your biological father, like, what was that experience? Like, do you still keep in touch with him? Like, what has that experience been like?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I think what's interesting about being from, you know, it's not. Well, there are two things that are researched. Appalachians who, who move north. Um, so that's where the phrase hillbilly comes from. And I think it's very, um, it was popularized and kind of stereotyped. And what they don't realize is that there were several millions of southern whites from all of Kentucky and Tennessee and Alabama that moved all over the north for jobs and they were deemed hillbillies just because they spoke with a Southern dialect and twang. The black migration, great migration is a little more studied because blacks went to very few cities. So they went to, you know, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, M and most importantly, where I'm from, Gary. Gary is the first city, along with Cleveland, to have a black mayor. Richard Hatcher, 1967 but having that Southern upbringing, it was, it was a little bit odd growing up where even though my dad was born in Gary, he, I would say, culturally identified as a Kentucky, in Western Kentucky and a flatlander. And so Southerners have something called a culture of honor. It's a little more masculine, it's a little more related to, um, you know, your public facing image. And you know, as my dad always said, all a man has is his word. Like your handshake is everything. And so growing up in the north, there were certain things I agreed with some of my peers and other things where it's like, why does my dad give me all these chores that my peers don't have? Why is he teaching me these things? And there's that kind of agrarian legacy that I have from the south, as my family were essentially, you know, subsistence farmers for 150 years. Um, and so that's kind of a fascinating component. Switching over to my biological side. As a kid, I never could understand why my parents, who had the same teachers as me, K through 12, were never as good at me as math, running, sports, There was something that just didn't kind of jive. When you get to seventh grade and your mom and dad can't help you with your homework, and then you're finding your homework to be very easy, I was like, this is, it was just strange to me. But then when I met my biological father who went to the Naval Academy, I was like, okay. And he was extremely good at math and obviously my grandfather even more so. It starts to click in a sense that, okay, well, this whole running gene and math gene, there's something, uh, to it. And uh, to finish your question, yeah. After I met my biological father and grandfather both in 2008, maintained a great relationship and saw them about a month ago, uh, for my half, uh, sister's wedding out in, uh, Napa Valley. And uh, they're, they're doing great. Um, I think if I have any sort of qualms, it's that, uh, my biological father is about 6,162, and I became 5, 7. I feel like I got the truly short end of the stick.

Speaker A: I, I hear you. I, I, I

Speaker B: they both have great hairline. So I'm not sure what the heck happened there either.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's like, uh, everybody, I think on my mom's side is like over six foot. I'm like, here I am like, five, five, nine. I'm like, come on, come on. But it's all right. We. We make up for it, you know what I mean? In other ways. So. But like. So, okay, so tell me this. You go through that experience, then. Then your mom passes away. How does your rest of your family handle that? How'd you handle that?

Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I think it's challenging. I mean, I. I think, you know, you. You live life in forward, but you analyze in reverse. And, you know, my mom was clearly one of the most attractive girls of her class, didn't have a lot of direction, joined the Navy, um, you know, politely put on the product of an affair between a, you know, Navy officer and a enlisted person. You know, things. Things happen. I think the word on the street is I was conceived in Iceland. Uh, I don't know, but, uh, essentially, you know, I think mom had always battled the bipolar and the depression. I think is certainly has a strong genetic component in my family. On the mom's side, you've got three generations of suicides. I don't think that's truly just environmental. I think there's a nature component as well as nurture. And so, you know, it seemed like over time, I would say the poles of her bipolar got farther and farther apart to where she alienated the entire family. Ended up moving south. She ended up kind of retiring kind of all of a sudden from the Navy and from the school system and moved to Kentucky where her sister was and some of my cousins, and, uh, you know, even they will tell you she became a person where, you know, one day she said she was going to kill herself. And three minutes later, someone shows up to her house, and she's like, hey, what are you talking about? Everything's great. You want to eat some cookies? I just baked, you know, and so, you know, I truly believe that my aunt was diagnosed with bipolar vessel schizophrenia. And I still kind of wonder whether my mom was sort of schizophrenic, because she really had these two sides that were so opposite. And towards the end, it became kind of clear that this was kind of going to happen. And I. I don't think it helped that it was. We were in the Great Recession, and when my mom retired and moved to Kentucky, she moved to a place where there were no jobs. And I think the best thing she could find was. And she was an officer in the Navy, and the best thing she could find to retirement was like, some $8 an hour job at, like, a gas station. I think there were some other jobs she had At Purdue, chicken and whatnot. But my mom was a very, very talented blue collar person when it came to electrical, mechanical. She could reroof a house, do flooring, she could rebuild all kinds of stuff. But I'm not sure if it took me totally by surprise when she took her own life. Um, but I will say the aftermath. I think we're in a society where you were kind of taught to just kind of maybe bottle things up. And I think, you know, my sister, we have, we have different genetics because we're only half siblings. Uh, because she's a product of my dad, not my father. I am not. Um, so we've got some different genetic lineage, but at the same time, you know, we were there to. We had a front row seat to two different horror shows at once. And, you know, I think both of us have taken a decade or two to totally reckon, work through that. But I don't think, uh, you know, if I had, you know, recommend anything, it's like you probably see a therapist sooner rather than later. Also, I think you got to have some sort of belief in, you know, a, uh, greater world power or global power or whatever that, you know, things truly happen for a reason. And what are the teaching moments at this? It's easy to look back and say that versus when five minutes after the event happens. How do you internalize it?

Speaker A: So do you say it kind of sounds like to your, your backstory a little bit. It's like, uh, um. Have you read the book Hillbilly Elegy?

Speaker B: Yeah, I've actually read it, probably more than most people. Uh, it continues to get, uh, a lot of reviews. I think last time I checked, I had 85,000 reviews on Amazon. It's been reviewed more than even what's Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life. That book has like 15,000 reviews. Once you hit a thousand reviews on Amazon, you're typically kind of a New York Times bestseller. So if that's a metric for, you know, how successful J.D. vance is, who is now, you know, U.S. senator for the state of Ohio. I resonated a lot with his story because I lived with my grandparents for a full year in Kentucky. But we both, both him and I are from parallel universes of steel cities that have been de. Industrialized. But we both spent summers in Kentucky with our grandparents. Even though he's truly Appalachian, my family are what they call flatlanders. Western Kentucky, very culturally different. But even the dialect and the slang and all that's different. But, you know, again, the whole mambo and papaw Thing is, there are definitely some commonalities in this stuff. But, you know, I think he. He wrote a book that really, truly uncovered some of the. The challenges of Southern to Midwestern migration and deindustrialization. You know, what happens to families when things fall apart.

Speaker A: Tell me a little bit about your book. Like, are you writing something almost like, uh, in a similar vein, if you will, like, kind of a look into your life, a memoir, but also look into the culture of this area, or tell me a little bit more about kind of what you're writing and why you're writing it.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think when I was running my clothing store, so my memoir started. I mean, I remember being an undergrad, wanting to talk about ALS because it was so obscure and so painful. I felt like a, uh, you know, a World War II veteran where you come home and you can't talk about it, and then you. You know, maybe you commiserate the VFW or the Legion, but at the end of the day, you probably become an alcoholic or you abuse your wife or your children because you didn't see the therapist, because that's not masculine. That's not manly. Right. You just need to bottle it up, have a drink of whiskey and move on. Um, but the reality is, um, every time I wanted to write about the book, I would have nightmares every single time, like clockwork. And so the book, you know, when. When I was living in Chicago looking for work, you know, as a presidential election cycle, I had read both the memoirs of Barack Obama and John McCain, who both were heavily influenced by the presence or absence of their fathers. And after meeting my biological father, I was like, well, this is now a new twist in my personal life and story. But also, you fast forward a couple years when you have the ALS ice bucket challenge that happened in 2014. And so, you know, I hated it because kind of pulled a band aid off a, uh, a wound that I was. That had not healed, but at the same time, it gave a disease that was obscure and unfortunately seem to be more present now than ever before. It gave it the funding and exposure and the branding that it needed to help other people. So I kind of continued to want to write it, write this book. Once I moved to D, you know, when I had my men's clothing store in 2015 and 16, that summer of 2016, I was working 100 hours a week. Pretty unhappy. I realized as a perfectionist that my parents had kind of unfortunately bred me to be. I was very unhappy. And I didn't read any books in 2016, because I was working 100 hours a week. And there were like all these people. Like, you got to read Hillbilly Elegy. You got to be, uh, this, this kind of, this reminds me of you. And I bought the book off Amazon. I remember, like sitting it on the shelf. Buy some bottles of whiskey. Because I would always have kind of just books kind of peppered throughout the store. And then finally one day you're like, you know what? Like, screw this place. I'm gonna go read this book. And then I read it. I think it was like in one or two sittings. And I just really enjoyed it. But I knew, I noticed that we definitely had some very huge differences. Is that, you know, J.D. vance's history, you know, he's from a community that's still predominantly more white. It didn't deindustrialize that much compared to where I'm from, Gary and the surrounding communities. You know, Gary is second only to, I believe Detroit, you know, lost two thirds of its population or a few decades. And, uh, you know, I believe that I grew up with a lot more minorities through southern migration. Blacks, um, browns, mostly Mexican, some Puerto Rican. But then northwest Indiana has this history at the turn of the 20th century of Eastern and Central European migration. So I grew up with people who, you know, maybe some people identify as white, but Greeks, Slavs, Polish, Croatian, Serbian, Lithuanian. I mean, Gary had 50 plus ethnicities between 1906, when Gary Works was founded in 1921. 15 years. I mean, that's wild. All these men who came to America for political exile, religious exile, job opportunities, unions don't exist. And these people are trying to coexist in a steel mill. It's a wild, wild, you know, history. And then, you know, pre union, you've got southern whites and southern blacks that were recruited by the mills. And then you have, uh, one of the mills went to Mexico. And so East Chicago is mostly Mexican for that reason. So you've got this kind of, uh, melting pot. And maybe it's more of a tossed salad in a sense that maybe people didn't mix as well. And you know, you've got anti immigration bills that become law in the early 1920s. And so, you know, the stimulus had to go south and get even more people. And, and they kind of prey on their lack of education, like they're looking for a better life. But at the same time, you know, the corporations, they're trying to create racial and ethnic divisions because if they do that, then they won't unionize against J.P. morgan and the man, you know, at the time, but remember, the EPA doesn't exist. You know, the cancer rates and the coke furnaces, blast furnaces, are 10x anything in this country. And so I think my background and understanding and I actually worked as a contractor in the steel mills off and on from 2003 when I was in high school. I got to leave high school to go work for an engineering firm and spent time in the mills, did a lot of detailed design drafting all the way up until 2015 when I had my clothing store. And so I was a little bit of a freelancer doing civil, electrical, mechanical engineering. And so I always like to say my book is titled millrat. The subtitle is more about ALS adversity and the American Dream. And I think where JD Vance and I are similar is we've got this kind of, uh, agrarian culture of honor turned Midwestern Rust Belt. We're six months apart in age. Where we're different is that, you know, he had all these revolving door, fake fathers, masculine figures. I believe that even though my dad had ALS most of my, uh, childhood, I think I had one of the best dads on planet Earth. Even though we were non religious, didn't have money. I just think that there are, there's ethics and values and culture that my dad bestowed upon me that supersede all the other privileges of the world. And so I always tell people, the short story is my book is Hillbilly Elegy Meets Tuesdays with Maury. And then the longer statement is, uh, essentially how faith, family and community are essential to helping individuals build the personal agency they need in order to overcome adversity and deal with failure in their pursuit of the American dream.

Speaker A: Super interesting. Yeah, I think, and I forget when I read that, obviously, probably when it came out, give or take, I think it was pretty popular at the time. It was just kind of an interesting look at, again, a culture that is not talked about a lot. And so I thought that was kind of interesting. Like, I think I'm, um, I'm, um. I obviously I don't relate terribly to Appalachia, but like, certain things I was like, oh, that's interesting. And I, I knew people from there and new guys and stuff like that.

Speaker B: Well, it's unusual for a book during a presidential cycle to get a lot of traction. And I think his book came out in June of 16m and obviously, you know, Senator Vance had a lot of connections, but the book became kind of a explainer of, you know, President Trump's populism. Like, why are all these union got white males in the Midwest who are, you know, again, my family, I would say, are fairly lifelong blue dog Democrats from Western Kentucky. Western Kentucky was 80% Democrat for 200 years up until George Bush, and then slowly flipped and now it's 8020 Republican. And so a lot of it has to do with, you know, the erosion of local tv, newspapers, radio, and, you know, once we get to the Internet age, you know, 2004 is probably a good benchmark after I graduated high school, where, you know, Facebook was born in 2004. Right. And Barack Obama is the first kind of Facebook elected president. He had young millennials that understood the technology. But the reality is the profit model really became about the Google algorithm. And as we've gone farther and farther into this space, all the profit in communications now resonates with Washington D.C. and the clicks and all that. And so what we've done is we've nationalized local issues. And so for Kentuckians like my family, if you think about Western Kentucky, you got co. You saw, you have coal over there. It's very different than Eastern Kentucky, but you've got coal, tobacco, and you got a fairly Baptist religious population. Well, the national Democratic Party, whether it's real or perceived, have attacked those things. Right. And so those people feel like the Democratic Party had alienated them and that's how they moved into the bush camp by 04. And now we're squarely, uh, uh, in the Trump camp. And I think in Western Kentucky, there are very few at city, county, state elected officials that are Democrat. And it's all happened within literally the last 20 years.

Speaker A: Yeah, man, it's super fascinating. I think, uh, probably don't have time to get into it, but I feel like you're, well, you're in the space a little bit. Granted, I know you do a lot of the financial policy stuff, but like, I do feel like in politics and stuff like that, obviously I think a lot of this is just, you know, a lot of these things are engineered, you know, they're purposefully engineered and um, to create division to, to, to just control and manipulate. So, and not that I need to go into it too deeply, but, um, I think it's fascinating. So let me, let me step back. I want to, I want to find out, how do you actually get into that in the first place? Cause I know people are like, oh, when I'm a kid, like, oh, I'll be president someday. And then you get older and you're like, oh, no, I won't. How do you get into that as an adult.

Speaker B: M. Define that.

Speaker A: Get into the Senate. Get into politics. Like, how did. What was that path like?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think, you know, I voted. I remember voting when I turned 18, it was a municipal year, and my dad's like, you need to pull a Democratic ballot so you can vote for this gal named, you know, the, uh, current mayor, Shirley Wadding. She was the only three term elected person in our community. And I think what my dad liked about her is that she showed up to the door and she gave a meaty handshake and he just, uh, you know, there are a lot of voters who just respect just like, showing up. You don't need to agree with somebody. Just having the dignity to have a conversation and talk about, you know, things in the community. And my dad liked that. And so I remember pulling a Democrat ballot and I voted for her, but I think there were some other races. And I remember coming home and I was. He's like, who'd you vote for? I was like, this person. This person? He's like, you voted for the wrong person. I was like, well, how the heck was I supposed to know? Like, I'm 18. Like, I don't know any of this stuff, you know, But I will say that, you know, I would say when I move. When I transferred from Purdue to valpo, I was in the study intensive floor because I was trying to make up for lost time. And all of my friends were very politically astute. I was by far the most ignorant. They had chosen their political parties and they had kind of made their arguments. And, you know, I had become a born again Christian at that point. And so I had kind of leaned in a conservative space based on a few things. And so during undergrad, I would say I was pretty politically agnostic or engaged. It wasn't really until the Great Recession happened that I started studying housing policy as a finance guy. And I realized these folks in D.C. really don't know what they're doing or they. They don't. You know, I'm a Nassim Taleb kind of guy. And so as a finance person, I was an undergrad and I had this epiphany. Uh, it was so weird. I started kind of studying philosophy, and I was struggling with my own faith. And when I started studying statistics, because I had two classes, I hated how mechanical it was. I thought, you can't box philosophy into this granimals kind of exercise. I knew there was something about the unknown and the unseen. And then when I read Taleb's book, I Said, this guy gets me 110%. We think the exact same thing about randomness in nature, mathematics and events and all that. And so that kind of carried me into the housing policy about politicians who don't understand risk fundamentally. And then when I went to grad school, what happened in 2009 was that I basically kind of used the Internet and I googled the local political party and I said I wanted to get engaged and I wouldn't call it a gang, but when you get involved, there's like little volunteer things that you do. You knock on some doors, you make some phone calls, you try to call some people to come to a fundraiser. And then once you kind of become part of the crew, you know, from there it's kind of like, you know, it's getting the door. It's what, you know, to stay, generally speaking. But that's how I got involved, the local level. And you know, by my mid-20s, I was the party co chair of a very wealthy, white, affluent community. And I ran the golf outing. I helped run the, what's called the, the annual Lincoln Day dinner where you have a big keynote speaker from either Indianapolis or maybe a national figurehead. And so, you know, you kind of fell into it. But it's really a game of relationships at the end of the day.

Speaker A: And then how about the move to D.C. so what was that like?

Speaker B: Well, that was kind of an about face in many ways. Where, you know, the clothing store, thinking about our friends from the menfluential conference who, you know, Antonio Centeno got out of, you know, custom clothing. He got into Google, SEO, digital marketing, ads and things of that nature. Aaron Marino, successful through most YouTube and his history. And so independent menswear stores, if you're not in a very touristy area, the business model doesn't make a whole lot of sense. They give you an example. I would go to the Javits center in New York City at the end of January, right? It's cold, it's freezing. I would be making buying decisions based on some forecasts. And I used a company called Management One. They would say, hey, Robert, 10% goes to Casual, uh, trials, or 5% for ties, 25% for blazers, you know, whatever that breakdown would be. And so they call your open to buy. You know, I'm showing up at $200,000 or whatever this is. This is how I need to make sure I don't get too heavy in any particular product category. Right? So I show up and there's 300 vendors and you're making Buying decisions in January for August to October delivery. Right. Do you know what the winner is going to be like in Indiana, 10 or 11 months from when you make that buying decision? Because I certainly don't. And so it didn't make sense to me to buy outerwear from a particular company. Let's call Barber. Let's pick on them. Right? Great. Company own a few of their wax jackets and whatever vests. So you, you know, you go to Barber, you're like, okay, I need this many wax jackets in size, small, medium and large. They manufacture them over the summer and then they deliver. They take orders at about four trade shows. Chicago, it's New York, Chicago, it was Dallas in Vegas at the time. Things post Covid are a little different. But essentially you make those orders. They m, manufacture them over the summer, they deliver them in the fall. But the problem is Indiana doesn't even get really cold until January. So I'm getting these, these winter jackets right in, you know, September, October. Menswear retail makes all of its money from September to December. That's like 80% of your sales. You make some money in spring, like April, May, but once you get to June, July, that's when people are vacationing. So menswear, they're not buying stuff. January, February, deep, deep in the red. You're losing your butt no matter how good of a clothing store you are. And so, so think about this. You try to sell those winter jackets through November, December, but the reality is it's not getting cold until January. Well, people have a credit card hangover at the time. Well, you are trying to discount stuff at, you know, 50, 60, 70% off. Well, if you're Macy's, you might break even on some of those goods, but for an independent menswear retailer, you're losing your tail. So you're trying to do what they call is turn the inventory. So you got to get that stuff out so I can get the spring wear in. So I just didn't really understand the whole model. I knew people who had stores that did $2 million of revenue, but their take home pay was like 100K. And it just, it was, you know, when you're working, I'm working. When you're taking a vacation for Christmas or Thanksgiving, as a retailer, I'm working twice as hard. So the whole like labor hour price per ratio didn't make any sense. And I was really, I'm an introvert. So as an introvert, I need like one day a week that I can kind of recharge my batteries, spend Time alone or whatever. And when you're a retailer, you don't get that. And so that's when I was like, hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna shut this thing down. I'm going to lose a lot of personal money. But, you know, Republicans are taking back Washington D.C. from the House, the Senate, and the presidency. I'm going to move out there and figure out how to make my money back. And so between kind of September of 16, when I knew I was kind of hitting the exit to, uh, the election, November, that's when I decided I was going to move to D.C. and I really hit, you know, I was 32 years old and really hit the reset button, you know, and, uh, it's hard. D.C. is a hard city to break into, but you need to live here in order to get what they call the informational interviews to be able to try to land a job. That's probably the hardest part, getting your first job out here. But once you do and you're part of the system, then you can kind of move about the cabin of the ship. And so, you know, for the last seven and a half years, you know, that's what I've been doing. But, you know, it took. It was a big pain point in the independent menswear, you know, industry to finally transition to D.C. and given my age and my experience, that's been a little bit of a benefactor where I just have a lot of people that I could I, uh, guess rely on to help me land, if that makes sense.

Speaker A: I've even thought about that. I'm like, if I had to transition, I don't even know how I would. I don't think I could. I mean, the idea of moving into a new space is kind, uh, of terrifying. And especially making a big leap like that once you get boots on ground. What did you do? Like, what was your modus operandi over there?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I, um, am I. Back in 2010, I received a fellowship from the Heritage foundation to move to D.C. to work in the legal center. And I turned down the opportunity because I was doing other things in Indiana. Well, when I decided I was going to move to Washington, D.C. i reached out to that same group. It's called the Washington Scholars Fellowship, wsp. And they had a unique. It was a. It was called Zetasi, I believe they had a unique relationship with Ronald Reagan's, uh, Attorney General, Ed Meese. And Ed Meese is, is the legal center at Heritage that the, uh, that's named after. It's the Ed Meese Legal Center. And so this Admiral Carrie was part of the same fraternity as Edmies. And so I, there's kind of this like backdoor way to become an intern slash fellow in the legal center heritage. So I moved to D.C. having a guaranteed job, but I think at the end of the day, I think I made $9 an hour. So, you know, 32 years old with a master's degree, $9 an hour, Washington D.C. that's a, that's a. You don't have a lot of. Yeah, you're. Yeah, you're making a dollar an hour and you're reliving college days 10 years later. So I did that and I tried to apply for. I spent that four months applying for jobs and nothing came to fruition. I was unemployed all of May and I think the first half of June. And I did, uh, because I used to sell life insurance, I would have between six to 10 informational interviews per day because I learned how to pick up the phone and dial for dollars and email people and what they call prospect and get in front of folks. Now the cool thing is, is that I had restarted my clothing brand under a name called Capitol Hill Clothiers, which I've since given away to a friend because he's more D.C. centric and I'm kind of more masculine and Midwest rustic. And so, uh, you know, I would show up to events and he's kind of frilly windowpane suits. And so people, when you do men's clothing in D.C. as a politico, that's a unique skill. So people just tend to remember you. And so that helped me build my personal brand in the city of like, hey, there's the guy in the crazy suits or whatever. And so eventually I landed at kind of this think tank advocacy group over in Arlington in June of 17. And that's when I could finally cool my jets and, you know, try to just figure out what the heck I wanted to do at that point. But I will tell you that this city is not a, uh, it's way more expensive now post Covid, where, you know, a studio here is over two grand. This is not a place where if you've got student loan debt or if your parents aren't bankrolling you, you can really get ahead, you know, very fast. You really need to have some back end support. And there's some groups that I'm involved with like American Moment, that their entire goal is to provide fellowships to Capitol Hill offices at a tune. I believe it's like three grand a month. But they provide, they Provide health care, insurance and 401k and all that. But their goal is to basically fund people to get on Capitol Hill so that they can get a full time job so that they don't have to do the free internship or the $9 an hour, you know, internship or fellowship. Because this place has become a truly kind of a have and have nots place.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, and what, what, what does that mean for you now, moving forward? Like, is this, like you're in it now? This is your career path? Like, what, what are next steps for you?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. I think, you know, out here you can't plan. The thing is this is a city where people fail up. If I were to get fired tomorrow, there's probably maybe five jobs waiting for me and various things. There's no place in the country that that kind of opportunity or demand for skill exists in that environment. Uh, you know, my boss is running for governor in my home state, and so, you know, that's a opportunity to move to the capital there. Uh, you know, I'm known as kind of an alcohol expert out here. There may be opportunities in that space, you know, but I think, you know, the real focus for me in the next six months is doing a fundraiser and finishing this book. That's really important to me. It's been something I've been thinking about for 20 years, but only up, uh, until probably the year and a half. You know where I've spent every Saturday? In the Library of Congress here, a few blocks away for eight hours. Every Saturday I just try to crank out 5,000 words because it's hard to write when you're working in Congress because the, uh, days are too long. But you can't peg your future on one given thing. You need to have multiple fishing poles in the water and see what bites. But, you know, I'll tell you that, you know, most people are familiar that I'm an advocate for Northwest Indiana. I think we've got a unique history with steel and also kind of trailing off Chicago. And if Covid taught Chicago people anything, you know, we're a much more cost, uh, effective state. Lake Michigan properties are a lot cheaper. Uh, and I mean, we've got the Dunes, uh, the National Lakeshore, which has some of the greatest biodiversity in the entire country for how small it is. And so there's a lot to be desired to go back to a little more slow cadence in the, in the Midwest.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm from or I lived when I was in high school, I lived in Holland, Michigan, so, yeah, I know the dunes and what I call the west coast of Michigan. I loved it, man. I. I could totally see that. Like, I live in Colorado now. And it's like, yeah, prices are, um, insane. And then it's like, man, I could technically work from anywhere, so.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, I had this colleague when I was working for my previous employer, we would do these state meetings around the country, and we had one in Grand Rapids, and they would basically fund part of, uh, they would basically pay for the airline there and back. So you could pick the days. But the cool thing is, on, uh, the conference would always be like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. But you could stay with the pro rated, like the group package for Saturday, Sunday on your own dime. So I always did that wherever I traveled. Well, me and this, this colleague, we. We stayed in Grand Rapids, but then drove around through to the. My friend's distillery and Three Oaks, which is close to the state line. New Buffalo. We stayed a night in northwest Indiana, and then we flew out of o' Hare in Chicago. We made this full loop. But when he got to Valpo, we went to this old college bar. And he was from New Jersey, so he's used to, you know, darn near New York prices. When he saw that, so this is 2018, he's like, wait, shots at Jack Daniels are $3, right? Pitch darter for four. It blew his mind to where he was like, I'm gonna buy the whole bar anything I want. Because, you know, for him, the prices are 3x in New Jersey. And then, you know, he lives, you know, we're friends in D.C. but it just shows you kind of the dichotomy, the differential between the coast and the Midwest. Um, but I'll tell you, during COVID with my best friend, we traveled all the way up to Saugatuck and we were doing wine bars. But it was funny because the governor was so stringent that we. We were up there drinking red wine. But as soon as you put the red wine down, you had to put your mask back on. We're like, we're not sure. This whole lot of sense, you know, it doesn't.

Speaker A: Zero. And in hindsight, we can see it'd be like, oh, yeah, that made no sense at all.

Speaker B: Yeah, like, yeah, you're not saving anybody anything. But my two half sisters, or two of my half sisters are actually from Commerce Township, Michigan.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Just outside Detroit. So I spent a fair amount of time in. In Michigan. And I think it's, uh, you know, other than the Winters that could be pretty cold.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: I remember going up there, doing some fishing. Uh, I think it's, uh, in after 2010. Here's a fun fact for you. In 2010, Michigan was like the only state in the union to lose population because of the Great Recession. The auto industry collapse. Right. They did. It was. They loosened up their alcohol laws and they basically, they were kind of one of the OG states for like craft breweries and stuff. And so when I was an undergrad. Yep. My. One of my colleagues, uh, in the finance program was from Kalamazoo. And he would drive, he would go home, he would drive down, he would bring bells.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Which bells wasn't in Illinois or Indiana. And this is when 2006. And just uh, it was neat because I actually went up to Kalamazoo at some point and what a great brewery. But in, you know, Michigan was kind of ahead of the curve and it was like, hey, like, we're in trouble economically. What can we do to inspire entrepreneurship and you know, post prohibition, you know, loosen up your alcohol laws. Not a bad idea.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, they have some of the best breweries around. Um, I think that's still the case. Uh, but like, I was very, very spoiled when I was like, in the craft brew scene. Michigan was like top, top three, I'd say.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

Speaker A: Like easily. Yeah. It's just a great. It's a gem, really. A gem of state. I agree. And the winters, winter's a little rough and like in uh, Holland you get like, uh, they call it lake effect. So it's like very gray. It's allegedly like one of the grayest kind of parts of the country like outside of Washington state. So that's a little, kind of depressing. But if you can get through that. The, uh, summers are amazing. And I love, I love Lake Michigan. I love the lakes. There's water place.

Speaker B: Oh, definitely.

Speaker A: Yeah. Anyway, so I know we're actually over time, Robert. Where can people reach out to find you, connect with you? Where can they go to pick up the book when it is released? Where else should we point people?

Speaker B: Yeah. So one of my goals in the past year I had my website, uh, redone.

Speaker A: It's.

Speaker B: It's www.robertordway o r d w a y dot com. I've uh, aggregated the Twitter handle, Instagram handle, uh, pretty much everything is at Robertordway. Tried to homogenize all those things on, uh, the website. There is a sign up for folks who are interested in the book. You know, this August, I will be doing a 800 plus mile bike ride from, uh, D.C. to the Indiana Dunes. And there'll be a sign up for that. Uh, it's going to be a great opportunity to talk about the book. And, you know, I plan to do some vlogging, I guess, uh, every day, you know, after riding 100 miles of Ivan Energy, uh, tell people what I'm thinking and, you know, share my dad's story about his battle with als. But, you know, I think I'm very confident that the rest of this year we're going to do some great things in the space and hopefully people are looking to connect and, you know, looking to, you know, especially the manosphere or masculinity, you know, helping, you know, someone who had a lot of challenges growing up. Uh, my goal is to take my dad's principles, Doug Ordway, and if I can transpose that to other men who have dads or not, good dads or no dads, I think that's the real key because, you know, when you look at, uh, you know, suicides and mental health issues and stuff, I think there's a, there's a derivative there when it comes to single parent households and, and we need to do better going forward, that's for sure.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'd say one of the greatest, uh, challenges in the world today is the lack of great men. So I do, um, I appreciate that endeavor. I'll be taking a look at that. I'll support your ALS trip, man, for sure. I'll be reading and following along and I look forward to reading the book too. So, Robert, thank you so much for being on in the Trenches, man. It was a pleasure.

Speaker B: Thanks for having me. Sure. I appreciate it.

Speaker A: And that wraps up another broadcast of in the Trenches. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a rating review. Just go to tommorkus.com iTunes and that'll take you to itunes where you can leave a five star rating review. And that really helps spread the word about this podcast. And finally, if you need help growing your online business or generating new traffic, leads and sales at a profit, reach out to me@tommelmorkus.com or head over to the website tommorkus.com and sign up for the free newsletter. That's it for today. Stay frosty.