Leadership lessons in a family business and beyond, with Claudia Dencer, Leonard's Photography

Gary Pageau of the Dead Pixels Society talks with Claudia Dencer, executive vice president and general manager of Leonard's Photography, St. Augustine, FL. Dencer talks about growing up in the third generation of the family photography business and how the business has changed and has adapted to massive changes. She also describes the leadership skills she has learned.

Leonard’s Photography has a 36,000-square-foot production facility, with approximately 250 employees, and studio locations scattered around the state.

Dencer is also the first female chairman of the School Photographers Of America (SPOA). She also talks about how important the tradition of school photography and yearbooks is and the importance of businesses of all sizes having a voice in the direction of the association. 

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Chapters

• 0:19 Marker 4
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• 20:18 (Cont.) Marker 4

Transcript

Erin Manning  
Welcome to the  Dead Pixels Society podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pageau.

Gary Pageau  
The Dead Pixels Society podcast is brought to you by Mediaclip, Photo Finale and Advertek Printing. Hello again and welcome to the dead pixel society podcast. I'm your host Gary Pageau. And today we're joined by Claudia denser, the executive vice president general manager of Leonard's photography in St. Augustine, Florida. She's also the recently named Chairman of the governing board of the school Photographers Association of America. Hi, Claudia. How are you today?

Claudia Dencer  
Good. Thank you for having me. Gary.

Gary Pageau  
First, let's talk about Leonard's you are an institution in Florida. You've been around for 70 years. Can you kind of walk us through the the evolution of the company that started I believe with your grandfather? Correct?

Claudia Dencer  
Yes, my grandfather. So he started it as a school photography company. Before that we were portrait photographers, we came here from Ohio, my grandfather spent most of his life here in St. Augustine. And that's where we're based at this point, we were like I said, a portrait studio. Before we were in school photography, we got into school photography in about 1947. When there were outside vendors coming in trying to take the school pictures here in St. Augustine. Obviously, the school board recognized that we might have that same skill. And so came to my grandfather, who then decided to take it on. And obviously it worked quite well. And we started to expand our reach at that point throughout Florida. And up till today. And we service a lot of schools in all Florida and up into South Georgia.

Gary Pageau  
So now you're predominantly a school photography company, do you still do the traditional portraits like you used to is that more of an adjunct to the existing.

Claudia Dencer  
We still do all the all of the traditional pictures for elementary, middle high school. And then of course, we have our senior photography sessions that as if you know anything about the senior photography industry, it's gone from just a drape and a tux to basically an entire modeling session that can either happen at our any one of our five studios, or it could happen at a school campus or anything in between. But it's unbelievable, these kids what they bring. So predominantly, that's, that's it, we do also print our own yearbooks here and how so we do have a full print shop down there with a binary and so we typically serve as elementary middle, and we've just now gotten to the high school realm in the past four to five years. So that's been really, really interesting to be able to build those big high school books now and be part of the history of that school. So

Gary Pageau  
and how much of your other production do you do? Do you outsource any of the print production? Otherwise you do? Do you do all that in house as well,

Claudia Dencer  
we do all of that in house. So we're vertically integrated here. So we have an entire lab, we print all of our own pictures and ship them out of here, shipping department everything. And we really, most of our programs are predominantly written in house as well in terms of how we handle the images and get the images through our editors, and all of that sort of necessary items that need to happen before the pictures are printed. We manage all of that in house. So we really don't use a lot of third party sources for much of anything, we've been very self reliant in that respect.

Gary Pageau  
Well, and that brings us to your dad, who really created a lot of technology that you're using. Can you talk a little bit about your dad?

Claudia Dencer  
Yeah, so i i very fondly remember being very young, and him always having a computer, just completely in parts on the breakfast table and just putting it all back together. So he's always been very into technology and learning the latest and greatest and everything like that. And that's really allowed us to transition and mold and flex. And you know, especially during the time of COVID right now just really take care of any specific needs that either our clients or you know, our schools also being our clients, we have two clients, we have the schools and the parents that we also sell to just really being able to facilitate really any single need, they may have, you know, because I mean if you know how to program that stuff and the systems and working in and putting it all together. I mean, you can't find that in something in a box on a shelf. He's always just been super interested in technology, how it works, how it translates out to our customers, and it's just been a fascinating process. To me, that's magic. I am not a tech. I'm not technology like I don't I'm not tech not technologically driven like that in that respect. So it's basically magic. He performs magic. As far as I'm concerned. It is because you can customize and just make it anything work for any single anything you would need. It's been great and I'll be lead to grow up watching that transform. And then now to see the end results, as we sit here at Leonard's and, you know, see what that translates into, and how we get picture from camera to a printed, you know, source and it's just, it's awesome. You've had

Gary Pageau  
to manage a lot of technology transfer a lot of difference in you know, changes in business models and things like that. And you managed to do it all internally, that's pretty impressive. Because, you know, a lot of the school photography business, when it was analog, they did that, you know, they created their own package, printing equipment and all that. But when it went digital, that that kind of changed, and that people start looking for third party solutions, but Leonard has not. So kudos to your dad. And he's doing the business, right,

Claudia Dencer  
he is he is dead daily. So it's not he is not backed off at all. But my grandfather, he had the same work ethic, I was not lucky enough to know my great grandfather. So I can only assume that he had that same, that same push and drive. But my grandfather in the same respect, you know, had his hand and making cameras work the way he needed them to work in order for it to be successful in portraiture. And also, some of the printing processes we used he was able to help with and mastermind. And in fact, I think there was quite a few that Kodak ended up using, you know, I mean, that I think that kind of runs in our family. And I think it's just a sign of the times to see how that transition from my grandfather to my father now. And that technology that we have, we all have access to now and how it's constantly changing. It's interesting to see that process and how different people at different times have evolved in that.

Gary Pageau  
Now you're the vice president, general manager responsible for managing the general craziness that happens there. Yes, sir. And you been in the business pretty much since day one, correct. I mean, you work there in high school, correct. And then you go through college and just stayed with it. So tell me about that. Because there's a lot of family businesses, where the heirs don't always go into the business right away, they go off and do something else and make came back come back, or they may never come back at all, you started right out and tell me about what was your thought process there?

Claudia Dencer  
Well, obviously, the smaller I was, the more menial tasks I had. So there was a lot of filing and putting things in alphabetical order, you know, throughout my whole life. And then obviously, as I took typing classes in high school, I'd have to come in and do some data entry sort of thing. So I can't say that my my younger years were of any glamorous sort, honestly started out not thinking I would have any involvement in this, I don't think I really understood the scope and magnitude of what the business was. And so fast forward to college, I, when I got out of college, I still had to take some credits over there. I went to the University of Florida in Gainesville, that I had moved back here in St. Augustine. And so I did need a job that was a little bit more I could schedule around my schedule that I was doing. And so my father indicated that maybe I could be a photographer. Well, of course, I think, I don't know, the last time I had a camera in my hand, I said, Well, I don't have any experience and so we can train you. So therein began my journey in this process. And obviously, I got trained as a school photographer and went out and took school pictures in all various means of schools from elementary to high school. And, you know, loved it loved the process, loved, you know, meeting the photographers, we were all like a family because we all banded together and traveled together. And, you know, would be overnight in Savannah and everything else like that. So to see it from the respect of that sort of day to day encounter, that you go into a school, you don't know what you're going to expect and you go in and it's a whole new day, every single day and but you always have to be on So there there is definitely you see school photographers are like, Oh, what an easy job. Not necessarily. I mean, I think at least I have that full scope image of exactly from start to finish what every job in this company really has to go through. And they have some of the hardest they have to be on. You have to get that kid to smile, you can't have a terrible day out there and get a kid to have a great expression on the other end of that camera

Gary Pageau  
there. What they don't see is the photographer is lugging in cases of photographic equipment at 5am 30

Claudia Dencer  
am in the morning.

Gary Pageau  
That's the glamorous part of the job right? Yeah, that's

Claudia Dencer  
the not glamorous part and the long drives and everything else but you know, it's such a unique perspective that I just never had obviously had never experienced before and spent about four to five years doing that before I started moving into more of an internal role more of a customer service role. Obviously I'm I'm definitely it can be definitely coined a people pleaser. So I love the process of helping somebody through an issue, whether it be they are just missing a package to whether it was helping an entire school, get their images so that they could put them in a yearbook you know, whatever that was, so I just really, I loved coming in from the end. from the outside in, and then really learning the kernel mechanism. Yeah, so then I could really kind of start putting it for full circle, like, Okay, here's how we capture the images at the school, this is how we start to process the images here. And then just recently, I've moved up into the lab. So you know, even the 22 years I've been here, like really, really, really learning like in the, in the building in the business, you know, I start to think, Okay, I've never been up in the lab before, I've always been on the ground floor in the office. So it's been, I'll say, a whole nother learning level of yours, just getting to know a lot of the people that I know here even better. You know, a lot of the people that are still here, we're working here when I was little, right. So it's been awesome to kind of see another perspective of the business up here in the lab. So I feel like I'm still traveling around and every single little entity and just learning more and more, and obviously, anything in this industry is constantly, you're constantly learning something new, because like any technology, it's constantly changing, and it's constantly evolving. And you have to be able to shift with the times as we saw during COVID. So you have to be able to the people that can shift and move better are the people that are gonna make it through it. So relative was

Gary Pageau  
your degree in history. Okay. So yeah,

Claudia Dencer  
I was a history major with a minor in Greek studies. So a lot of research. So

Gary Pageau  
So you know, the value of photographic material over time. Right,

Claudia Dencer  
exactly, exactly.

Gary Pageau  
One of the things that Leonard has developed is a program to help students be better photographers. Can you talk a little bit about that? Is that something that you saw as necessary, as you talk to customers as Because? Because, obviously, student photographers are key to the yearbook type thing?

Claudia Dencer  
Exactly. Yes, it absolutely was. So in, you know, the scope of services that we cover, especially in a high school realm, we do cover some games, you know, here and there for the school just to make sure they have really great content and everything else, but we can't be everywhere at that school all the time. And really, let's just say Joe Schmo from Leonard's covering a game and having one of his images in there, that might be great for that player, and maybe that team and that might be make that parent super excited. But what if that image was taken by a student there at the school, right, and then that student got super excited about and then all of their friends were excited about it. So we did recognize the need that the more the students in these schools, give and populate these yearbooks, and records with their own photography, they not only create interest, obviously, in this thing they're trying to sell which in this case would be a yearbook. But in that if we could provide the training, and then they're able to really tackle a skill and have a lifelong skill, I mean, who doesn't go around and want to take a great picture. So you have a memory of whatever you and you know, whatever it is, you're trying to remember in your life, whether you're on a trip, or whether you're at school, or whether you have grandkids or kids of your own. So to provide the training necessary to be able to produce a really quality image that you're super proud of, maybe capture something that you only have ever seen in like a Sports Illustrated or you know, something of that nature, the pride and like excitement that is instilled in these student photographers is just honestly, it's kind of intoxicating, like it excites us, because we've given them a skill. They see the power in that skill, they get excited. They're, you know, they're telling a story in their yearbook. So we started that program where we actually brought in a high school teacher from a local high school here, and he molded an educational program that we provide now to all of our high schools, we even provide it in some elementary and middle schools, especially through our conference, every year, we have a conference ourselves called press pass. And it typically takes place in July, this will be the third year, this is only the second year that we've been in person last year was virtual. And we provide that training that really any of those students from the high schools can come in and partake in, but also any of the advisors even on a middle school level or an elementary level. I mean, they can all benefit from that kind of training. And you don't have to have a super fancy camera. A lot of it's just in the eye of what you're capturing. I mean, obviously we we've all seen, you know can do amazing things with your phone, and you can do amazing things with just appointment shoot. I mean, it's amazing what you can do. So a lot of it's just working with a composition and what's the story you're trying to tell? And really making them understand that it's more than just doing a snapshot? What's the story in that image and really driving that home because if you're really understanding and you're passionate about story, that image, you're probably going to take a great picture. That's half the battle right there. And we can get as technical with these kids in the end the advisors or We can, like I said, I mean, we even have a, recognizing that phone photography is huge, you know, we even have a phone photography session as well, because that's what the kids are going to have on them all the time, they might not have their big rig from the high school because we do provide some cameras to the high schools as well, so that they have the equipment necessary to go out and shoot football games and you know, soccer games and that kind of stuff. But what if you don't have that? What if, what if you need to think on the fly, and you see a great picture, great composition, great story being told there and you want to capture that? How can you do that with whatever you have in your hand. So it's just been such an empowering program, both for the student and advisor, obviously, and you're going to constantly have turnover. So I mean, something we have to do every single year. I mean, these kids aren't sophomores forever, they're not juniors forever, and they're not seniors forever. And the new yearbook advisors go in and out to, exactly, so it, there's a constant need for it as well. So it's something that we're constantly doing. And it's something that we're constantly updating with, you know, whatever we see as trends in the industry, both in yearbook, photography, and just photography in general. So it's just very, it's been a very empowering program. And we've even had two or three of these astute of photographers come on board and become photographers for us after college.

Gary Pageau  
Yeah, I can, I can see where that is almost like a talent program. Right? Talent,

Claudia Dencer  
sir. Yeah, yeah, you develop your talent. And some of these kids had never had experience to the camera before. And they didn't even know that was something that they would enjoy doing. So there's just so many aspects to it that are so positive, as you know, and nowadays, I think we're all looking for that positivity, especially with, you know, high school students and getting them engaged and making them excited about just what they're doing about their school life, about their school's culture and everything involved. So it's one of my, it's one of my favorite programs, just because there's just so many positive aspects to it. And of course, there's us as trainers, you know, us as trainers, we, we love seeing the development, especially when you know, they they come out to be super successful. And again, you know, it also benefits them because they sell more yearbooks if they have more student content in them. So so when the yearbook

Gary Pageau  
side, do you have a training program for the design and that side of the yearbook to Yes, yes. I'm a recovering yearbook advisor myself. Okay, so I know, it's a constant learning phase, because you can get a new stamp almost every year.

Claudia Dencer  
Yes. So we have many a yearbook advisor on our staff, and one particular lady Mallory, she's come to us and she's a self glorified yard, which is a yearbook nerd. And she actually just got her master's in the journalism education program. So she has an MJ E, which is super exciting. But she creates all the curriculum and content, being an advisor herself, she was able to really come up with what it would be what you would like to teach in the classroom, and really does help us mold our photography education program, as well with some directions and guidance on what curriculum they're looking for. But yeah, we we go as far down into, like, you know, how to design a page, what you're looking for how to tell the story, you know, any of those, like kind of higher level journalistic ideals that we want the kids to understand. Because, you know, that yearbook class, especially in the high schools, it's like a little business. I mean, they're running a little business there. And there's so many aspects of that. And I think the most successful yearbook classes I've seen, has every kid playing a role, obviously roll they're really comfortable with but for managing the money to, you know, providing the layout and the story and what's the theme of the book and deadlines and you know, everything else? I mean, I think it just I don't think it's it's talked about as much as it should be the power of what these yearbook classes are really learning both from start to finish in the process of making a yearbook, both in the photography to the storytelling, the journalism to just the business, keeping money, you know, whatever kind of down in the weeds, types of things those kids are doing. I mean, it's really amazing the experiences these kids are having, you also

Gary Pageau  
mentioned, you know, pride in the school and all that you also do some work with the schools with helping them with their image, right, like outside brain. I think that's a very interesting aspect. So tell us a little bit about your on site branding partnerships with the schools.

Claudia Dencer  
So we discovered about I'd say probably about eight years ago that we have obviously a lot of designers in house here who helped you know designer marketing a website you know, you name it flyers, everything like that. And they have a great skill where you know, in a lot of these schools don't have a lot of money to associate with the sort of branding to go into these schools. To be able to help them bring a pride and excitement to their campus that they might not have the money for. But it's something that maybe we might be able to work into our contract because we have, you know, the staff of designers and everybody who can come up with these really amazing projects, anything from like a full wall mural and a cafeteria with a bunch of different student life photos, like we did appear in North Florida and Keystone heights to just a door wrapping of windows and things of that nature. But it's amazing, because you know, a lot of some of these schools are new, you know, and those are, those are easier, they're blank slates. But some of these schools aren't new. And some of these schools might have been built in the 70s and 80s. And you know, might be in desperate need of some sort of revamping of, you know, just just a simple design. And it's amazing, the pride and excitement just walking in bring to the school because it's providing that image, that image of you know, your pride, whatever your your team is, for that school, or whatever it is, it's really bringing that to the students, and they see it in their hallways, and they see it in their cafeteria, and they see it in their sports arenas, and you know, whatever it is on campus that we're helping to brand, it's just such a powerful thing. And again, you know, with schools not having either, you know, a lot of money to really put in that bucket, it's nice to help them out. And to be able to provide a service that we've really been setting on men here. I mean, we have, we have the talented designers that are really super excited about these of these projects, as well to see them take shape and form and get put up on a wall. I mean, it's it's awesome. And it's really even more exciting because most of us here have all gone to the same high school. So we just recently did a huge project at the local high school in St. Augustine. And it was so exciting because so many of us are alum from the school. So the pride on the other side, even from internally here of being provide something to the school that we walk the same hallways in and we just got as excited to put up, you know, Wall clings on this wall. And it just provided so much excitement around the building that that was awesome, too. So, and it helped our employees really see like, oh, that's, that's how exciting that stuff can be. Okay, now we understand why you guys do it. So I love that service, the schools get super excited about it. And it's just from new to old buildings. It's always just such a prideful, important aspect of bringing positivity to student life. So obviously,

Gary Pageau  
you're passionate about the importance of school pictures. Yes, that leads to your participation in the school photographers of America spa. And you are recently elected the chair of the governing board. Yes. What drew you to this new association that's really was just over a year old now? Well, obviously,

Claudia Dencer  
in the beginning, just the very, very beginning conversations on SPOA. It was born from that need in March of 2020. To establish a school photography is an essential business that we do provide essential security things to the school. So we take we not only take the students pictures, oftentimes we're managing a tremendous amount of their data, and have to do so responsibly and protectively. And then on top of that we're providing them ID cards, we're providing them those images to import into their software, we're providing all of that. So SPOA was born in that need to become an essential business. And now that we obviously established that, I think pretty much all over the entire country. I mean, obviously I can speak for Florida and Georgia. But we started to really note we need an associate trade association that represents school photographers, and it's been a while since we've had this. And it the need is very necessary. And I do believe that like many things COVID shone a light on that was definitely one of them. So as one of the leading school photographers in the United States, I felt that it was very important for Leonard's to be on the governing board of this we felt it was very important to establish that need. And I know that we've kind of come up with a why are we doing this and so we all just met in person. And so to this to this day, this is how it stands. We are we stand to advocate educate, preserve, and protect and promote the great tradition of school photography and yearbooks. And because there is a tradition there and obviously we're in because we just talked about it. We're in an industry that's constantly changing and evolving but what every single one of the school photographers of America governing board members stands by is their tradition here. And there's a pride that goes within that tradition. And there's a need to band together so that we can educate the public and our schools and our customers on our role and how important it is to have school photographers and the role that we play. And really, you know, the value of our products, and all the things that goes into, and all of the all of the people it reaches, and whether your images go out there to find a missing child or to to celebrate a certain child's you know, accolades or, you know, whatever it is, I mean, school photography is that tradition that really continues, and it's really amazing. So it was just really important for us at Leonard's to be part of the driving force. To really start the school photographers of America, obviously, we're really embarking on a really exciting 2022 for school photographers of America. And we can't wait to reach out to any company that hasn't come on board and is taking advantage of what we're what we're creating for them to use. And so we're just really excited about 2022. And I'm very, so very honored to lead that charge, it's been such a pleasure to work with every single person on the board. And what a unique situation where you all get you all get together. And at that table, you might have multiple competitors there that we compete against each other, possibly on a daily, monthly yearly basis, at least. And but we can come together with the overreaching importance of this industry, what we stand for a lot of us are family owned and operated. And we're in multi generational family businesses. And we can come together for the greater good to make sure that our industry continues to be healthy continues to thrive, and continues on with a tradition but knowing that we have a future and that it's constantly evolving, and to be there to support this industry. And really any company that embarks on it,

Gary Pageau  
one of the exciting things is coming up in 2022 Is your conference, the first conference, it's going to be in June, how is this conference, how's the content of this conference going to be different than other photography conferences, that may focus more on the the the shooting or business side, you've got a very aggressive agenda to bring different aspects of the industry together, including, you know, customers and educators,

Claudia Dencer  
we are really going to primarily focus on the leadership, we've identified that the best feedback and way that we can give back to the industry is just in that leadership arm that really is not been a class or anything as that's taking place at any of these other conferences. So we really felt that we could come in with this leadership theme to our conference, and really get some people excited about sitting at the table with either some, you know, really large companies or, you know, kind of delve deep into the, you know, leadership qualities that you really need to have in order to, you know, be a successful business in this industry today. And that was really the basic missing link that we all decided, was missing from all the other conferences that we had taken part in, and was probably one that we could we could do and and it would it's going to bring people to the conversation and I can't wait for that. I think it's going to be super powerful.

Gary Pageau  
So as someone who's grown up in the industry, right, you've seen a lot of the changes, you are one of the family owned businesses that you represent, how important is it as a woman to be leading this first governing year?

Claudia Dencer  
I mean, I think it's huge, I think, you know, with everything going on the world today, and equality and everything else. I mean, we all as the governing board can sit at that table, and we all reach across the table and it it male or female, it doesn't matter. You know, it doesn't matter. At that point. We're all in it for the best the betterment of the industry and the future of bringing on that tradition. So I mean, I think it just speaks to it could be anybody, you know, but and I'm you know, obviously there's power and being you know, the female leader to that, but showing others that in a predominantly male, populated industry. There is a female voice here and I think that's a huge selling point as well, that it's not what you think it is, you know, it's not your dad's trainers voice here. Yes, there's a female voice here as well. And we're all bringing something to the table. And it's important for us all to hear each other at the table

Gary Pageau  
personally. What do you think you bring to the table from your perspective as someone who started behind the behind To lens and work your way up to leading the large size volume photographer, I mean, you've been through the trenches. So what what perspective does that give you?

Claudia Dencer  
I think that's it right there, the trenches. So I mean, you can come into any industry or any company and you know, maybe be a good leader and lead it. But I honestly think that unless you've rolled up your sleeves and been out there day in and day out and done the job and walked in the shoes of what you're asking your other employees to do, and really, truly understanding what it is you're asking them to do, does it make sense? Is it really bringing yourself down because I mean, you can look at everything from like a 30,000 foot kind of scope, they I think there's always importance and looking at it from the ground level to I mean, you have to you have to know, because you have to figure out the minutiae, and whether it's going to result in the end result that you want in the quality image you want, or the quality packaging, you want to come out of there. And that starts at the camera. So I've always prided myself in you know, I want to be a part of every single thing. I've been down there in yearbook season, helping run you know, one of the binary machines because and just to be there and to work around the employees that have given you know, so much to us, and work year in and year out to make sure that we get our yearbooks out the door, it's like that, I love that part. I love it, I don't ever want to be so far removed, that I'm not in, I'm not able to be in a trench because I think then you just become, you lose touch, you lose touch. And I and I think that's probably to me, that's important my role at Leonard's but it's also important in my role as SPOA to because I'm very passionate about I mean, not to get into like where we sit in terms of cuz I don't know, quite frankly, because that's not we can't, it's not important. But the smaller company that you have, the larger company you have, we all have a voice that table, and it doesn't mean that the larger company has a bigger voice and a smaller company, that's just not it. We all have a voice at that table, we can all come together for again, the greater good. And I think that's so important. And I think it goes back to you know how I started in this industry and how I started in this business. And I started at the start in data entry, you know, enter names, and I filed stuff in a filing cabinet and evolved when I was, you know, 12. And then you know, and then I took the photography, and we've discussed how that's not a glamorous job a lot of the time because super early, and you're lugging a bunch of equipment around and you have to be on, you know, to packaging up here and trying to meet a deadline and getting the packages back to the school. I mean, there's just a whole gamut. But I have that same approach. And I think that's the skill I would bring I bring to the chair position here, it's both for the governing board is everybody has a voice at this table. Because we have a major task in front of us again to advocate educate, preserve, protect and promote the great tradition of school photography in your books and what we do, and you can't have one voice be louder than the other. So we all have one. And it needs to be equal.

Gary Pageau  
Who would you say is your leadership model? Like? Like the person you look at? It says that's a leader? I want to be like, Oh, my

Claudia Dencer  
God? That's a hard question. That's a really hard question. I don't know. I don't know if I'd out off the cuff have a have a

Gary Pageau  
boy, it just doesn't mean leadership is very important to you. Because because you can't.

Claudia Dencer  
That's actually not a hard question. Let me let me reverse that is not a hard question. My father, there you go. Because he's fair. He's always always been fair. He's always been a listener who lives a leader that listened and took in whatever issue problem, idea, thought process, anything that we had to do, and just always then responds in the most fair approach to that. And I've I've always had great respect for that.

Gary Pageau  
Well, thank you, Claudia, for your time and your insight and looking forward to the growth and of SPOA over the next year. So and hope to see you in Houston in June. Thank you so much.

Claudia Dencer  
Yes, we'll see you there. Thank you so much, Gary.

Erin Manning  
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at www.thedeadpixelssociety.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai