305 – Gary Rabine of Naples, FL, Serial Entrepreneur, Patriot & Father of Four Including A Son With Cerebral Palsy

Transcript:

Tom Couch: [00:00:00] Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast, working tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics mission at HorizonTherapeutics.com.

Gary Rabine: When it comes to special needs, I see some people that are just heroic that I watch that have a lot more challenges than I had. If you can, shower that person with love and then really understand the gratitude you get out of doing it, because that’s not easy to think about.

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, Gary Rabine, a serial entrepreneur and host of the Ditch Digger CEO Podcast. Gary and his late wife Cheryl are parents to four children, including Nick, 23, who has cerebral palsy. Gary’s had quite a journey, it’s quite a story, and we’ll hear it in this Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Now, say hello to the founder of the Special Fathers Network and host of the Dad to Dad Podcast, [00:01:00] David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi, and thanks for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast, presented by the Special Fathers Network, a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs.

David Hirsch: On Saturday, May 11th, the 21st Century Dads Foundation will be hosting its fifth annual Special Fathers Network Dads Virtual Conference. This year’s theme is SELF CARE: Being Selfish So You Can Be Selfless. We’ve assembled a great roster of presenters and there will be plenty of time for small group breakouts so you can meet like-minded dads striving to be the best dads they can be and to help their children reach their full God-given potential. Registration is free. For more information and to register, please see the show notes or simply go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: Now let’s hear this intriguing conversation between Gary Rabine and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I’m thrilled to be talking today with Gary Rabine of Naples, Florida, a serial entrepreneur, CEO of Rabine Paving, a nationally recognized business, host of the Ditch Digger CEO [00:02:00] Podcast, and father of four, including a son with cerebral palsy. Gary, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Gary Rabine: Thanks for having me, David. I appreciate it.

David Hirsch: You and your wife, Cheryl, were married for 35 years before, very sadly, she passed away in 2020, and are the proud parents of four children: Austin, 36; Janelle, 34; Jordan, 33; and Nick, 23, who has cerebral palsy. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Gary Rabine: Yeah, I grew up in Fox Lake, Illinois. Grew up in a house that was a cottage turned into a full-time house. My dad worked in a factory. My mom was a stay at home mom. My dad married my mom and she had three daughters. He was only like 21 years old when they got married. They proceeded to have three more kids and I was in the middle of that next batch of three. I was the first son. My brother was born a couple years later, so six all together. But my dad worked in a factory and he continued to pick up side jobs to really be able to support his family. So he had the 40, 50 hour a week factory job in a [00:03:00] rubber plant in North Chicago, Illinois. Goodyear Rubber Hose Factory it was. And on the side he cut trees, he did some landscaping, he did everything he could to make a buck on the side so he could feed these six kids and pay for that house that he took on in Fox Lake, Illinois. So I learned a lot of work ethic from my dad.

David Hirsch: Yeah, I was going to ask you, how would you describe your relationship with your dad?

Gary Rabine: Yeah, it’s been great. My dad and I haven’t always got along. He was a tough guy, he was very tough on us as kids. He wanted us to be gritty and tough and wanted us to understand how to work. So he worked us like dogs from the time we were pretty young. My younger brother was never a fan of working every waking hour he wasn’t in school. I kinda liked it. And my older sisters, most of them, worked as hard as I did before I was working. Anyway, I had a father that really worked us hard, but overall he loved us, showed us a lot of love.

Gary Rabine: My mom and dad, they were great loving parents, which is most important. And I would say, if you saw the way my dad raised us, today neighbors would [00:04:00] say those kids are being abused. [David chuckling] Professionals need to talk to him. Let’s get some police out there because this isn’t right. But I got to tell you, my four older sisters, my younger brother and I all know how to work hard. And I’ve been blessed that work ethic has carried on to my entrepreneurial life. And I think you can look at everything in a very positive way when you have challenges, or you can look at them as negative. But I got to tell you the upbringing I had made me a stronger person and it’s got me through a lot of tough times in my life.

David Hirsch: Yeah. It sounds like he had a good work ethic and he’s helped you and your siblings become more independent as a result.

Gary Rabine: Absolutely. He’s 85 years old now, just turned 85 here a month ago. And he’s still in good shape. My mom passed away about 11, 12 years ago now, 13 years ago. And she was a great mom, great stay at home mom that always was that positive force behind us. And my dad’s still a hard ass, good person, fun-loving guy, but really a hard ass still today. He likes to work mostly around his house in Florida now, but always on the go, which I think is good for him.

David Hirsch: So in addition to embedding this work [00:05:00] ethic and maybe entrepreneurial spirit, what are the lessons that come to mind that you think about when you think about your dad?

Gary Rabine: Really, it’s grit. He was the grittiest guy I know. I saw him fall about 30 feet from a tree. He was trimming a tree. And the whole way down, his back got skinned. His skin got ripped off his back while he slid down the tree. Again, about 30 feet and ended up getting back up and finishing the job while his back was bleeding. [David chuckles] And then went to the doctor afterwards and figured out how they could just clean up the wound.

Gary Rabine: But yeah, so grit. [ laughing] He taught me grit and work ethic. And I believe in today’s world I think the American dream is accessible to all of us. But I think if you have a little more grit and work ethic, it happens even easier.

David Hirsch: I’m thinking about other father influencers, and I’m wondering what if any role your grandfathers played, first on your mom’s side, and then on your dad’s side.

Gary Rabine: Yeah, I never knew my mom’s dad. My grandfather from my mom’s side, he passed away shortly after I was born. He was a painter, and supposedly a great guy. Never got to know him, but heard great things about him.

Gary Rabine: My dad’s side, my dad [00:06:00] had a father and a stepfather. And they’re both like my buddies and my grandfathers. They actually got to be friends later in life. They stayed together, fished together. My grandfather and my step-grandfather became good buddies. But my grandfather was a factory worker, a paper mill worker in upstate New York. Lived with me from the time I was probably 15, 16 years old till I got married, moved out. And he was my bedroom partner. We had queen beds in our bedroom and he slept in the bed next to me. So him and I got to be very good friends. And he was just a great positive character role model. He always had confidence in me. He always told me you could do whatever you put your mind to. And he worked with me on a daily basis. That was my grandpa Leo.

Gary Rabine: And then my other grandfather, my dad’s stepdad was like a grandfather. Since I was born, he was my dad’s stepdad and a very good father to my dad, too. He was a Navy commander. I got amazing mentorship from him as I liked the construction industry at a very young age. Started my business out of high school, paving driveways, seal coating driveways and stuff. [00:07:00] But he gave me a vision for what great engineering could be, because in the Navy Seabees where you became a commander, a lieutenant commander, excuse me, he was in charge of building roads. If you think about Vietnam or the Korean War, they had to go in and they had to build bridges and do all this stuff with existing materials.

Gary Rabine: So my grandfather Jack, Grandpa Jack, was a huge inspiration to me because he was a great engineering mind and got me thinking about pavements that much more and the cool things I could do in the paving world if I could access great engineering. And since that time in the last 40 years, I found some of the best engineers in the world to be mentored by and best engineering principles in the world to share with my customers.

Gary Rabine: Now, my customers today are some of the biggest building owners in the world, like Walmart, Home Depot, Target, Prologis, Blackstone. These are all my customers nowadays. And I basically guarantee them that I’m going to find the best engineering in the world to allow their pavements to last longer than anybody else and maintain them at a lower cost.

Gary Rabine: It’s [00:08:00] funny, I don’t think about it that often, but when I think about my grandpa, it was him that inspired me to think about engineering differently. For a kid that barely made it through high school, I loved engineering, and I knew that I could access that knowledge without being a scholar, right?

David Hirsch: Yeah thanks for sharing, and sorry to hear that you didn’t have a chance to know your maternal grandfather. But it sounds like you had two strong influences, grandfather influences: your grandfather Henry and then your step-grandfather Jack.

Gary Rabine: Yep.

David Hirsch: And obviously they played a really important influential role in your life as well.

Gary Rabine: They sure did.

David Hirsch: Any other father figures, individuals that played an important role, either when you were a young guy or perhaps as a young adult for that matter?

Gary Rabine: Yeah, I think that I look at my father-in-law. I got married pretty young. I met my wife at 19; my late wife Cheryl was 18. And she had a father that was an amazing father. He had his challenges. He liked to get out and drink, but I gotta tell you, he was the most loving person. He had lots of friends, but he really focused on faith in his life and his family. So they’re a [00:09:00] very strong Catholic faith. You’d never hear him swear. Again, he’d like to party, but it all stopped if people got to be belligerent or any cussing was going on or somebody said anything, any mild swear word, right? Boy, he’d flip the channel and, “That’s enough of that! I’ll never listen to that show again.” And the family stayed close always. They were always loving. He was a great mentor for me because I saw the love of family that he created, that him and my mother-in-law created. And that’s pretty cool.

David Hirsch: Yeah thanks for emphasizing that. Faith isn’t just something that young people absorb. I think it has to be practiced and witnessed. And then there’s no guarantee either for that matter. You’re very fortunate to have had a strong father figure in your father-in-law.

Gary Rabine: My life has been about really figuring out how to surround myself with really good people that are successful in business as entrepreneurs. But I tend to really gravitate to those that are strong family focus, strong husbands and fathers. Because it’s not easy to be all those things, and when I see people that are all those things, that’s pretty cool.

David Hirsch: Yeah, thanks for emphasizing that because like we’ve discussed or agreed to, that [00:10:00] you could be a really wealthy person, make a lot of money, but if you don’t have a strong relationship with your family, your kids in particular, what’s that all about?

Gary Rabine: I could have been in that boat really easily if I didn’t have a great partner for 35 years of my life that really was there for my kids when I was working crazy hours often. So yeah, not everybody has that, the blessing of having a great partner. So I always tell anybody, spend plenty of time and energy making sure that partner is one that’s going to support you, that you know you’re going to support, that you’ll go through any wall for. And if you get that, you’ve got the world in your hands, really. You’ve got a lot of opportunity to be successful if you’ve got a great partner.

David Hirsch: You’ve already emphasized that you have a high school education and you went to work. And we could do a whole podcast on all the different jobs and companies that you’ve been involved in, that you’ve started and led. But I’m wondering just for our listeners benefit, if you could just do a brief flyby on where your career started and where it is today.

Gary Rabine: Yeah, so I worked for my dad who had a little landscaping and tree-cutting business in high school, actually [00:11:00] before high school. Started by about 10 years old, doing hard work at about 10 years old actually sounds odd. But you know, drag the trees, splitting wood, running a chainsaw, running an old Bobcat that he had, right? And then one day there’s a guy that saw me running his Bobcat and asked if I would run his little Case uniloader, bobcat, whatever, to grade driveways for him. And I was 13 years old. And the guy said, “How much did your dad pay?” At the time, my dad was paying me $4 an hour. I told him, and he said, “I can pay you $5 an hour.” So I said, “My dad’s working and he doesn’t need me. I’ll work for you.” So sure enough, that’s what I did.

Gary Rabine: So through high school, from freshman year to senior year, I worked for this guy paving driveways and seal coating driveways and patching driveways. And I liked it. My dad didn’t like that business at all. And I liked that even better then because I didn’t really want to do what my dad did because I wanted to be independent of him. This guy didn’t do very good work, by the way. Even as a teenager, I could see he didn’t care about the customer very much. He definitely didn’t care about the employees very much. So I thought there was opportunity there. And so [00:12:00] when my dad would landscape a yard, I’d operate the equipment and labor for my dad landscaping a yard. I would tell him we could pave the driveway too. So that’s how it started, paving driveways for our customers and my dad, and then knocking on doors in Northern Illinois to do seal coating and patching and driveway paving. And that started by 1981.

Gary Rabine: I’ve started about 35 or 36 companies now in 43 years and I have 14 companies nowadays, and we think we might be the largest privately-held commercial paving company in the country. And then we have eight other companies. So the other eight companies are a roofing company, a mechanical company, a door and dock company, a stone removal company, a technology company where we fly drones over properties all over the world and we assess the condition of pavements, and then we have a pipe televising company where we put robots underground. Mostly maintenance companies. And my son is the CEO of all those companies, my 36 year old son. And my daughter is the CEO of one of our biggest companies, Janelle. Austin’s the 36 year old. And our businesses are growing rapidly [00:13:00] on a annual basis.

David Hirsch: That’s fabulous. Thanks for the brief flyby. Like I said, with all the business experience you have, all the businesses that you’ve started, the 14 companies that you’re still leading, we could do a whole other podcast, but I think you did an adequate job of just emphasizing your business credentials. So thanks.

David Hirsch: Quick question. I’m curious to know, how did you and Cheryl meet?

Gary Rabine: We met at a bar. We met at a bar, a place called Horsin’ Around. If you’re of our age in the late seventies, early eighties, the kids went to Wisconsin to drink because it is 18 there and Illinois is 21. And so it was just North of Antioch, a place called Horsin’ Around where my friends from high school, their parents own these two places, Rocket North and Horsin’ Around. So I’d go up there and hang out. Eventually they gave me a job bouncing up there from the time I was 18 to 20, probably 20 years old, two years. And that’s where I met Cheryl. So I met her on the dance floor and yeah.

David Hirsch: Let’s talk about special needs first on a personal level and then a bit beyond. So I’m curious to know, before you and Cheryl became parents, did either of you have any connection to the world of disabilities or special [00:14:00] needs?

Gary Rabine: Yeah, we did. Cheryl. I think that, number one, any family that’s blessed to have a – it sounds weird, right? – blessed to have a special needs person in their family, I think becomes a family of lots of compassion and caringness. When they see somebody that’s struggling, they’re there to help faster than normal just because they’re used to being around. Cheryl grew up, her brother was two years older than her, was born with spina bifida. So a spine outside his body. He was never supposed to walk. And then he was born in 1960. Back then, the odds of living any life at all were very limited for somebody that was born with that. Her mom was a nurse. Her mom never gave up and took him all over the Midwest. They had very little money, but her mom never gave up. She was a caretaker from the beginning. Her big sister almost to her big brother, looked out for him, stood up for him, so she became somebody that was very used to growing up with somebody with special needs in the family. And she took care of Gary until he passed away, really. He ended up, a crazy thing. He was never supposed to walk, wasn’t supposed to live past mid-teens most [00:15:00] likely from what they said. And would never be able to walk. But by the time he was about 40 years old, he started going backwards physically and was back in a wheelchair.

Gary Rabine: Cheryl set him up with a date one day with a girl that she thought was super sweet and turned out that they needed some guidance. So we went and joined a bowling league with the two of them for a year or so. And eventually he proposed to her. They got married and had amazing probably 12 years of marriage, maybe 15 years of marriage and a great life actually that was never to be expected. But Cheryl and her big brother, Jim, pretty much oversaw him and her because she had some special needs as well. Physically she was great, worked a job. Jeannie still today works a job and does great on her own. We all watch out for her still. But anyway, lived a pretty normal life but Cheryl ended up, Cheryl and her brother, Jim, took care of him. I helped, and my family, my kids all helped too while he was in a wheelchair. And we moved him in within a mile from our houses and helped him with a house, build a house that was handicapped accessible.

Gary Rabine: But anyway, that experience was a great [00:16:00] experience. Gary was an amazing guy that we all loved a lot. It was Gary, his name was Gary Blackowitz. And I think that experience for us was a great experience for my kids to see and all his other nieces and nephews, some work in my company and stuff. And they all have that sense of extra compassion, in my opinion, because of Gary.

Gary Rabine: And with our four kids, my third child, Jordan, she and her husband are married and they’ve got four kids. And then my fourth is Nick, who we adopted when he was two and a half years old from Russia. Nick didn’t have only a little bit of visual cerebral palsy. They told us he had, they called it minor cerebral palsy back then, caused from fetal alcohol syndrome. But so Nick had, when we adopted him at two and a half, we knew he had some issues. Didn’t know how bad they were. The health reports were pretty good, but didn’t really describe his condition too well. But Nick basically had an arm and a leg that… he dragged a foot and his arm was at his side. So we saw a little bit of physically some issues there. But within a few months he was normal.

Gary Rabine: Now [00:17:00] when we adopted a two and a half that his arm and his leg that looked like he had issues, boy they went away pretty fast. Within months he was normal. Didn’t see much restriction on that leg, that foot or that arm. So we were told that’s just because a lack of exercise and that minor cerebral palsy, whatever he had. And we still didn’t really understand it.

Gary Rabine: But then later on he even started going to school and we saw many issues with his learning. He had major challenges learning, absorbing information and all that. That went on. Cheryl took him all over the Midwest, just like her mother took her brother all over the Midwest looking for doctors and therapies and all that. She did the same thing with Nick. And by the time he is 10, 11, 12 years old, he struggled academically and all that, but he was getting through the day pretty well, with a big smile on his face, even though he had a little headache by the end of the day and things.

Gary Rabine: And at 17 years old, actually I think he was probably 16, when I found out about a scientist, a neuroscientist, Dr. Roberto Trujillo. I actually interviewed him on my podcast, Ditch Digger CEO too. I think he’s number 23. [00:18:00] But he’s a world-class neuroscientist that a woman, Laura Ingram, who’s on Fox News, I had dinner with her and her sidekick. And she told me when she found out about Nick and actually at the same time, my wife had brain cancer. She told me about this friend of hers that was she thought one of the best neuroscientists in the world. That I should talk to him. So sure enough, I called this guy and she called and said, I’d be calling him and had a long conversation with him. He actually flew out from DC to Chicago to meet with me and spend a day with me. And he told me excitedly about some new technology he discovered in India and that technology was having good results with cerebral palsy as well as any other brain damages too, such as major concussions and PTSD and other things.

Gary Rabine: There’s a scientist in India that came up with some crazy technology. They call it today Neurocytonics. So we flew to India months later to get Nick treated. And it’s the best thing that ever happened to us because [00:19:00] Nick’s anxiety issues were pretty much gone within the first 10 days of a 28 day treatment. And today at 23 years old, I celebrated his 21st birthday a few days ago in Vegas, cause he wanted to go to Vegas because they’ve got the best hamburgers at a couple of places. So we went to Vegas for two days after a ski trip. And it’s just so nice spending time with him and understanding that he’s an independent young man. And we were told that would never be the case really. We were told that this guy’s a pretty sharp young guy. He’s better than most cases but boy, you’re probably gonna have to raise this kid and be with him the rest of his life. And we had no problem with that. It wasn’t something that bothers in any way.

Gary Rabine: But nowadays he’s an independent guy. He lives with his cousin, my nephew. Lives in my house, so he’s still living off the fat of Dad. [both chuckling] But anyway this guy’s amazing. He’s a really positive guy. He works hard. He works at our golf course. We own a golf course up in Northern Illinois called Bull Valley. Nick loves doing the greens keeping. So he works there. And he’s always going to have a job because he likes working hard. But yeah. So Nick’s an amazing young [00:20:00] man that I have a blast with and I’m blessed that I got him. And my kids when he was little, I think my kids got closer to my three older kids cause they’re all pretty much older than him. And they got closer in my opinion, because when we had to do something, they took care of him. And they looked out for him, right? Just like my wife did her brother. We’re all lucky that he has no major health issues. He’s healthy as can be. He’s going to live a long, strong life and he’s gonna get married someday, have his own family. And pretty cool, pretty blessed.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for sharing. That is a remarkable story. And I’m going to refer to that as the “bank of dad” that he’s benefiting from, as opposed to the “fat of dad.” Just saying. The central question I have again, I’m just thrilled that Nick’s life has transpired the way it has, not a straight line, he’s a very resilient young man and he’s becoming more and more independent, which is amazing based on his what’s to say, modest start. But what was it that motivated you and Cheryl to adopt? And then adopt somebody from Russia like you did?

Gary Rabine: We both grew up from lower middle income [00:21:00] families. Her dad worked in the telephone company and mom was a stay at home mom. Our business was going early on, it didn’t realize if we’d ever be wealthy or not or anything else. And we had our three kids and we had them pretty fast. Within three and a half years, we had three kids. So within, let’s say four and a half years of being married. So by the time we’re 26 and 25, we got three kids. So we, in our mind said, we got to slow this down because, as much as we’d love to have a lot of kids, we don’t have a lot of money. And so we didn’t know we could, we wanted to be able to send the college something neither one of us did and support them.

Gary Rabine: And so eventually probably 10 years, 12 years after this point, we said, gosh, you know what, coming back from an accountant one day saying, boy, we’re making great money in this. Our businesses are really doing well. We could have more kids. And the little stinker in the back seat who was at the time, let’s say she was five, six years old, Jordan, the one that turned out to be an attorney. We always knew she would be. Anyway she says, “I want a little brother or sister. So when are you going to adopt?” We said, “Wait, we’re just talking about this. You’re in the backseat. [00:22:00] Just mind your own business.” She never gave up. She kept bugging us on a weekly, monthly basis. “Are we going to adopt or not? I want a little brother, a little sister.” So she really made us think about it a lot. And so eventually we said, at the time we’re pushing, I was pushing 40. And I said, I really don’t know that I want to be a parent and having kids at, 45 or 50. It’s the time, we better decide. And we both agreed we would look into it.

Gary Rabine: And you have to go through the classes and all that to be a foster parent first. And so we did all that. And then we looked into different places in the world to adopt. And we wanted to adopt actually through Catholic charities, but in the States, but it was such a mess. We heard so many nightmare stories about people adopting in the States. So sure enough, we adopted from Russia. We got a reference within a few months time and it was a picture over a fax machine of this cute little stinker with big ears. And we went and got him. We had to go there two times over the course of about a month and a half. First to go make sure everything was good and that we have to commit to him and go there to commit [00:23:00] to him. Then we had to go home and come back again for another week at another time, probably a month and a half later. That’s the way it went. And it was all, it was crazy. We had to pay off a lot of people. The people you had to pay off in Russia was unbelievable. But hey, it was all way worth it in the long run.

Tom Couch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments, but first this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents Survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey will receive a Great Dad Coin. Thank you. Now, back to the conversation.

David Hirsch: So I’d like to talk about a handful of other things. The first is True Mentors, this inner city mentoring program that you helped start a couple of decades ago. What is that? Where is it today?

Gary Rabine: [00:24:00] Yeah. So True Mentors still goes on with a lot of the mentors still mentoring young people that they started mentoring. I still have four or five young people that are now in their thirties that I started mentoring in their late teens, early twenties, whatever. And I love mentoring my leaders in business and young people into leadership in my businesses. Our success is really due to great people that like to work hard, that I can love and respect as leaders and really groom into leaders.

Gary Rabine: So our success has come from a lot of that. People that didn’t realize they could be CEOs and leaders and entrepreneurs have become successful through our businesses. But also some of my people that I identified as potential leaders, that I mentored, went off to run their own businesses, some with really great success. And so I found gosh, that’s a lot of fun, whether they work in my businesses or somewhere else. Part of the blessings of my life has been just to be there, to share my experiences with people and then see them use maybe a little bit of what I’ve shared with them to be successful.

Gary Rabine: And so I started True Mentors with a young man [00:25:00] that I mentored. A young man from the inner city, Quentin James. I was speaking at an event in the city of Chicago for challenged kids out of the inner city, mostly Englewood neighborhood. And I talked about mentorship and how important that is, right? And one young man in the back of the room said, “Hey, Mr. Rabine, would you mentor me?” And I said, “What’s your name kid?” And he goes, “Quentin James.” I said, “You talk to me afterwards.” And then a few more kids came up and wanted to talk about the same thing. But Quentin stood out among the rest. And I said, “Quentin, I’ll mentor you, buddy, but you got to make sure that you follow some rules I’m going to have,” and I laid out the rules. And he said, “No problem, Mr. Rabine, I can do that.” Quentin ended up a year later becoming my partner in True Mentors and really helped build the system of how to mentor by sharing experiences, not telling people what to do. Anyway, so Quentin actually helped build all the building blocks to a thing we ended up calling True Mentors.

Gary Rabine: And Quentin then would find many kids out of the inner city that wanted mentorship, that he knew would embrace it. And then [00:26:00] I found CEOs and leaders that I respected to mentor those kids. And so we found them, but it ended up to be 55, 65 CEOs that were very successful. Some actually billionaires, right? A couple. And so here you got people that have made it in a big way, mentoring young kids. What we found, and I think you’ll continually find David as we do these things, is when a young person sees somebody that is spending their valuable time on them, right? Somebody that maybe had never had a leadership figure ever even talked to him, right? It’s amazing what happens with that experience. So from that, we’ve seen so many crazy successes it’s been unbelievable. And many millionaires, some of these kids now are worth tens of millions of dollars and growing, right? We’ve got one that’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars to a business he sold and all that. So the fun thing is when you can share experiences, other people learn from those experiences and they grow from them. And True Mentors was that.

Gary Rabine: But when Cheryl had brain cancer and eventually she did really well. First few months were [00:27:00] tough and then she did really well for a few years. And then it came back and it wasn’t going away. And I knew I had to be with her 24/7 pretty much. I stepped down from the CEO of our companies. My son took over. So Quentin went on to take a leadership role at the casino in HR in Chicago there, Rivers Casino. And then was recruited by Exelon to come on board Exelon. And he became a a leader at Exelon nowadays, a young leader at Exelon and doing great. And we still see a lot of these relationships continue on with these CEOs and their mentees. So it’s really cool. And we think these mentees end up being mentors as well. Because if they’re givers, they give back again. So that’s a lot of fun.

Gary Rabine: So I started the podcast at that time before I knew I was going to be going home to be with Cheryl all the time. I started the podcast and it was probably five years ago, something like that.

David Hirsch: So this is the Ditch Diggers…

Gary Rabine: Yeah, Ditch Diggers CEO Podcast is exactly the same thing. All I do with Ditch Diggers CEO is I let… just like you, I want people to tell their stories. And for me, it’s rags to riches stories that these people are top 1 percent in their industry that I [00:28:00] interview. And top 1 percent of their industry. If they got there from nothing, something cool happened. And what we find is these people are almost always servant-minded people. These people are almost always givers. They give back to society and they’re the type of people that, when we interview them, we know that people listening we’re sharing experience with some great success stories. We’ve got, my story is the first one, but we had Jimmy John’s story from Jimmy John’s sandwiches. We’ve got the Netflix founder, the Redbox founder. We had the Domino’s pizza founder, Tom Monahan, a few weeks ago. We’ve got many founders that are just spectacular people. And we want these people to tell their stories so that other people can learn from them, right?

[ Audio excerpt from Ditch Digger CEO Podcast]

Gary Rabine: Are you ready to be mentored by some of the best minds and entrepreneurship in the world? Then you’re listening to the right podcast, Ditch Digger CEO.

Gary Rabine: We’re ready for maybe one of the best Ditch Digger CEO podcasts ever. I’ve got a gentleman that I’ve admired from afar and got to meet Tom…

Gary Rabine: As soon as he said Domino’s, I said, that’s great. We’ll call it Domino’s. [00:29:00] We had three stores at the time, a hundred different names, and we’ll change them all to Domino’s.

Gary Rabine: It was 1962, 1963?

Gary Rabine: This was ’60, about ’62. And you know what Domino’s means in Latin?

Gary Rabine: No.

Gary Rabine: It’s a Lord’s Pizza.

Gary Rabine: Wow.

Gary Rabine: I didn’t catch that till years later. I had two years of Latin. I should have known.

Gary Rabine: [End of audio excerpt]

David Hirsch: I’ve been a religious listener of your podcast, and even as a guy who maybe doesn’t need a lot of mentorship, I’m inspired by these stories, right? Like you said, they’re servant-minded leaders. Most of them are business owners but not all of them are for profit. And you’ve got an amazing network and I just really appreciate the work you’re doing in the name of the Ditch Digger CEO. And I can highly recommend it to anybody who might be listening to this podcast as well.

David Hirsch: I know that you had a foundation, you created a foundation because of the success of your businesses. And it was originally known as the Rabine Foundation. And after maybe Cheryl passed away, or maybe it was before she passed away, you renamed it the Cheryl Rabine Foundation. I’m wondering what the history [00:30:00] of the organization has been, and what is it doing now?

Gary Rabine: Yeah. And also Rabine Group Foundation was started… What happened was, actually probably about the same time we adopted Nick I think, as we were making decent money, Cheryl was in charge of giving, giving back and giving it away wherever she thought she needed to: our church, local things in our community. And one year we had a year… I think about the times driving back from the accounting firm at the end of the year trying to figure out how we did. Because we weren’t that good at tracking it as we are today on a weekly, monthly basis, like we are nowadays. But back then I knew about if I was going to do well for the year or not. But sometimes you’d have a great three quarters and the last quarter you’d have challenges and you’d actually lose everything you made. And one of those years happened in the early 2000s. And I was like, man, we lost money this year. And then I looked at Cheryl. I said, “Cheryl, you gave away a lot. You gave away a lot. You invested in a lot of things this year.” And she goes, “Yeah you told me I could.” I said “No, you always can. We just have to figure out how to do this better.” And so anyway, bottom line is we looked up foundations and how to start a 501c3. [00:31:00] So that way I said, that way we say, if we do this we’re going to give out of our profits. And if we don’t make a profit, we’re not giving. We’re not putting money aside to give back, to invest in the community, unless we’re profitable. And so that worked out a lot better. We had years where we’ve done amazing and our foundation gets a ton of money donated to it.

Gary Rabine: Nowadays that foundation is… So Cheryl passed away three and a half years ago and we renamed it the Cheryl Rabine Foundation actually last summer. That foundation is a sustainable foundation. There’s not one cost and overhead attributed to that foundation. Our accounting firm donates their time. Our 10 board members donate their time. My daughter Janelle took over for Cheryl and she’s passionate about it. She spends probably 20, 30 hours a week in that, working that foundation. And she’s also leading a company of ours. So either way, the foundation, every bit, and I say that every bit of every dollar that goes into it goes directly to a cause. And the causes we invest in, we want them to be teaching people to fish. So we want them, whether it’s for children, whether it’s for elderly or [00:32:00] the vets that we invest in. Money always to go to something that teaches people to fish, that creates sustainability compared to just throwing it out there. So it’s been a blast. Our goal was to be able to invest a million dollars a year in causes we believe in. And we’re not, I don’t think we’re more than 10 years away from that now,

David Hirsch: It’s very impressive. And I think it’s part of Cheryl’s legacy, right? The work that your family has been doing, others have been doing in the name of the foundation. I’m hoping that if that’s a goal is to be giving away a million dollars a year, that from your lips to God’s ears, it’s just a matter of time.

Gary Rabine: We’re going to get there. I believe within 10 years, we will be there. Again, that was a goal that we had initially. We saw some huge foundations that were built before, they gave away that and a lot more. Cheryl was always one that didn’t care about money much because she thought that with money, it would be me working more and being away from the family more. And so anyway, it helped us align much better all the way around.

David Hirsch: Yeah, I love it. Thanks for sharing. So the last entity I want to talk about before we move on [00:33:00] is the Job Creators Network, JCN. What’s the backstory on that? What does that organization do?

Gary Rabine: Yeah. So JCN. I gotta tell you, I had ups and downs in my career, right? In business. And usually you’re going to as an entrepreneur and hopefully you get stronger every time there’s a tough time. And I’ve had a few of those in my life. My toughest time, of course is battling Cheryl’s brain cancer and losing her. But overall, in business you have tough times that sometimes come at the same times you have personal challenges, which we had. But either way, so in the 2001 to 2004 timeframe, unions of Chicagoland area said we had to be unionized. And I didn’t agree with them and my teammates in my business, I only had 20 people on the team back in 2001 and none of them wanted to join any union. So I thought, hey, it’s America. There’s no way I’m going to let these guys tell us we have to be unionized. We fought them for three years and it was a tough fight. They turned up the heat on a monthly basis until there was 60 business agents on our little 20-person company. Business agents are the guys driving what looked like important cars around and then try to scare people away from doing business with you. [00:34:00] Try to scare your employees away. And so on. It’s pretty, pretty crazy what happens and never thought that can happen in America. Power of this organization, Job Creators Network, is incredible. I’m trying to grow the small business numbers in a bigger way. Because I want small business across America to understand that we can fight when there’s bad regulations that hurt jobs and small businesses.

Gary Rabine: So that’s something I’m focused on also. So that’s kind of my passion outside of business and philanthropic causes I’m involved in is fighting for free markets and fighting for the American dream. Something that I’ve been blessed to be part of, right? To be a guy that barely made it through high school that’s had the blessings I’ve had. In my opinion, I’m pretty ignorant if I don’t fight for those in the future, those small business people in the future that could have the same opportunity I had.

David Hirsch: Yeah I love your dedication and commitment to the free markets and I wasn’t going to bring this up, but what did you learn by running for governor of Illinois?

Gary Rabine: Yeah, running for governor of Illinois, first of all, I’m so disheartened by what’s happening in what was once a great state. The taxation is the highest in the country when it comes to property taxes [00:35:00] now. Some say it’s second to New Jersey, but our commercial tax is so bad and so abusive that it’s now number one. I wanted to fight the high tax. And I believe we have a war against families in the state of Illinois, where our education is the most expensive or second most expensive in the country. The quality of education has gone down so bad in our once great state of Illinois. So I ran for governor because I wanted to change those things. And I never ran for anything in my life. But I figured, hey, I’m gonna run or I’m gonna run. I ran for governor and I lost, so I ran to Florida where I call it my home for seven months a year now.

Gary Rabine: But either way, what I learned is I believe authenticity is something that’s lacking and I knew it, but even more, I saw it in a bigger way in our state of Illinois. Where if you listen to any Republicans – and again, I grew up in a Democratic family, my dad was a factory worker, was a union steward, and he was a Carter guy and all that. My dad eventually turned to be Republican, but as I grew up, he was very Democrat.

Gary Rabine: But what I learned was this: forget about Democrat, Republican. [00:36:00] Who is there in our state that actually is selfless, who’s not bought? And I studied this before I ran and I still look at it today. There’s plenty of people on the left that I know are bought in many ways, but there’s some that aren’t. Some are there as Democrats really believe they’re doing the right thing and they’re not bought. I don’t think there’s many of them, but there’s a few. When I look at the Republicans, many of them make me sick because they speak like a great American. They speak like a great backer of free markets and lower tax and all that. But when you watch what they do and you watch what they vote on and what they abstain from voting on in the state of Illinois, I figured out about 75 percent of our Republican politicians are bought. Bought by the unions, bought by special interests, the big corporate America, whatever. They’re bought. And there’s about 25 percent of them I respect a lot that are not bought.

Gary Rabine: Now it’s tough for them if they’re not bought to win because they can’t generate the kind of money to run for office just like I couldn’t. So when they win and they’re not bought I really think a lot of those people and there’s a good [00:37:00] chunk of those in Illinois but not near enough.

Gary Rabine: So what did I learn was the people that sound like great Americans that I never dug into, never looked into how they voted and what bills they supported, I realize now that so many of them are just, they make me sicker than those Democrats who do what they say they’re going to do. You can be a Democrat and believe one thing and you’re honest about what you believe in and you vote for that and you’re not bought and I respect those people too.

Gary Rabine: So my thing is yeah, what’s disheartening me the most is those Republicans that sound like great Americans that are not great Americans when you look at how they vote. And we’ve got some of those in our backyard in Barrington that were there downstate. And I gotta tell you when it comes to labor and free markets, they’ve been terrible in hurting the state of Illinois.

David Hirsch: Yeah I don’t want to make this a political conversation, but I think the most important thing you said about your experience running for governor is there’s a lack of authenticity, right? And hopefully people are just who they are, and whether you’re on their team or not, you respect them for being authentic, right? Because at least you know where they’re coming from and what they [00:38:00] stand for, as opposed to saying one thing and then, like you said, their actions don’t line up with what their words are.

David Hirsch: So, anyway. Spirituality. What role has spirituality played in your journey?

Gary Rabine: Yeah a lot. I believe that, over my life, the first half of my life, I don’t think it played as big a role as it could have and should have. I think I was a mediocre father when it came to being the father that really inspired faith.

Gary Rabine: My wife did a great job of that. I think I did a mediocre job of that. And I think the last half of my life, I’ve realized how important it is. And especially through the loss of my wife and the lessons learned there, I became way more spiritual than ever. So for me, if I can every day just count my blessings and think about all the amazing things that I’m blessed with in my life. I go to bed and sleep really well. I wake up and I’m pumped up for the day. And I think no matter what tough times we go through in the last half of my life, there’s been some crazy tough times. I believe that those prayers of gratitude when I go to bed at night and when I wake up in the morning are most important.

David Hirsch: Thank you for sharing. So I’m thinking about advice now and I’m wondering if there’s any [00:39:00] specific advice you want to share with parents, specifically dads, who might find themselves raising a child or children with special needs.

Gary Rabine: Yeah. When it comes to special needs, I see some people that are just heroic that I watch that have a lot more challenges than I had. If you can shower that person with love and then really understand the gratitude you get out of doing it. Because that’s not easy to think about as some of these parents I know are living their lives, working a real job, taking care of their kids. Because my son had minimal issues when it came to just taking care of him physically and all that, he had nothing. He was physically an easy kid and he’s such a good kid that he’s been easy that way as well. Even when he had issues, his daily issues.

Gary Rabine: But I see people that I know that I respect immensely who are spending 40, 50, 60, 80 hours of their week really focused on that kid with major work they have to do for that kid or multiple kids in some cases. My son-in-law has 22 kids in his family. Okay? 18 of them were adopted. So you want to talk about [00:40:00] unbelievable. I should have mentioned this. When I talk about heroes and parents, his mom and dad are heroes in my life. They had multiple kids with special needs and and yet they got through it all and they raised all these kids. They’ve got a couple of kids that’ll be with them the rest of their lives and they’re now up there in age, I think they’re late sixties, early seventies. To watch them shower these kids with love and yet raise them demanding a little bit out of them too. They’re not easy on these kids. But either way, that’s heroics. And if you can think every day about that kid’s going through their own challenges and you could shower them with lots of love. I don’t know how to say it, but that’s heroism to me, right?

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for sharing. And you’re referring to your son-in-law, Gabriel. Isn’t that whose family you’re talking about? Okay. Thanks for sharing. So why is it you’ve agreed to be a mentor father as part of the Special Fathers Network?

Gary Rabine: I believe that the best thing I can do is share my experiences in life. I think that if we can be who we are and share our blessings and our failures too, right? Be blunt [00:41:00] and share our failures. I think we can learn a lot from other people if people do that.

David Hirsch: But I think one of your superpowers, Gary, as I’ve gotten to know you, is that it’s your authenticity. What you see is what you get. And I think we could all learn a lot from that.

Gary Rabine: I thank you. I appreciate that.

David Hirsch: Let’s give a special shout out to Robert Blackwell, who is Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast interview number 102. And more recently, Steve Thomas, who’s Special Fathers Network Podcast interviewee number 299 for helping connect us.

Gary Rabine: Steve’s awesome, too. Yeah. Steve Thomas, a great dad, a great person. So no, those are two good characters, boy. And thank you, David, for being the guy you are, doing this stuff to inspire others and make other people better. That’s what God has us here on this planet for, in my opinion.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thank you. So if somebody wants to learn more about your work or contact you, what’s the best way to do that?

Gary Rabine: Yeah. Ditch Digger CEO is a podcast I do. I have a lot of fun. People will hear my story. My story is the first one there. And then I also dip into, I probably have two or three other podcasts that are interviewing a couple of my leaders, my son. And in my run for governor, I think [00:42:00] after I lost, I did a podcast on what that was like and some other things. Either way, the podcast is probably the best way. And otherwise if somebody needs a lot of parking lots paved we’re the guys and the girls.

David Hirsch: Okay. Thanks for mentioning that. I’ll be sure to include some information in the show notes that’ll make it as easy as possible to get ahold of you. Gary, thanks for your time and many insights. As a reminder, Gary is just one of the dads who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, please go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

David Hirsch: Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads Foundation is a 501c3, not-for-profit organization, which means we need your help to keep our content free to all concerned. Would you please consider making a tax-deductible contribution? I would really appreciate your support. Gary, thanks again.

Gary Rabine: Thanks, David. Have an awesome day, bud.

Tom Couch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. [00:43:00] The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support other dads. To find out more, go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook.com, groups, and search “dad to dad.” Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, please send an email to David@ 21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch.

Tom Couch: Thanks again to Horizon Therapeutics, who believe that science and compassion must work together to transform lives. That’s why they work tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines [00:44:00] for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics at HorizonTherapeutics.com