Interview with First Response Building Services - Ty Severa

All right, welcome back to the program. You're listening to Life, Liberty Happiness. Check us out on YouTube at LH Underscore Podcast. Today's special guests Tye Severa, Yes, tell how you say that? I don't one that is? That's correct. Welcome to the program. First, thanks for having us. Tye is the owner of First Response Building Services. Yes, all right, tell us one. Before we get into exactly what you're doing, let's talk about you in general. Where's home? Home is in Ronoak. It's in Cave Spring. Born and raised all my life in Roanoak Ventting Areas where I went to school, went to William Bird. I graduated in twenty sixteen and just stayed around since since then. So twenty sixteen. Yeah, so you're a young one. Yeah I am. I can see. Well, no, I mean when I think about that, I know there was a three year stretch William Bird was pretty da good football. That was right after I left. I did not get to live that, but they had a really good run there. Yeah, they they were starting to look up my senior year. In the two years after that, I think they went to I know they went to the playoffs both years, and I think they went to the state semis one year. So yeah, I remember that team. I was catching at Liberty, So I do remember that vividly. Yeah, yeah, I think it was a year recently that they went to the state championship and lost to h It was Liberty, No, it was the school up in Lynchberg right beside Liberty. Yeah, in the state championship game. That was like two years. Yeah, all right, So after high school, what what do you end up doing? So I had gotten an interest in public safety before I graduated. I met a deputy that actually was up here in Bedford County. He was a sergeant at the time and did a couple of ride alongs and I just fell in love with it. So it wasn't old enough at the time, so I went to Renick County Dispatch. I was a dispatcher for two years, answering nine when one calls and knew that that was just a jumping block for me. So then I was the youngest to be hired by Renal County Police. I was twenty when they hired me, didn't turn twenty one until six weeks before the academy ended, and then hit the streets at twenty one. So does Ronoke also do a cardinal. No, we have our own or they had their own academy joint with Runnick City, So you know, about seventy percent of what we did was with the city and then the other was you know, county. Specific stuff got so it's over by the airport. So I'm assuming once you got into that, was it what you expected or was it different? It was definitely what I've expected. And the only reason I can say that is because as I had done so many ride along that kind of you know, I was all in. You know, I was consumed by it. I guess you could say, yeah, and that's that's probably why I got burned out so quickly. But you know that that first several years it was what I expected, what I wanted and was fulfilling. Before you go much farther, just asked one question by chance, when you were doing the dispatch. Did you ever work with Melissa Williams? Do you know Melissa Williams S Williams do not? Okay, all right, just wonder so she was at dispatch forever, but I'm not sure if it was Rono County. I just wondered. Gotch So I always tell people who are listening that if you ever get a chance to do a ride along, whether you're interested in law enforcement or not, it's worth going. You still tell stories and you did it. It's some of my favorite memories are just I had a buddy of mine that was a police officer city at Lynchburg and he worked third at that time, they worked third. They had three shifts yep, and so like, if I was going to be off the next day, I'd call him, I'd say, hey, can I ride to nineties? Like hey, yeah, And it's just it is. It's an eye opening experience, yep. And it's so many levels to it, like it's not just one thing. It was like unfortunately, one of the calls we went on was a murder and just there's so many things that nobody thinks about. To me, it was it had been at a hotel, yet once they found out it was a dead body, they closed the door and then they're not allowed to go in until a search warrant comes. And it's like little things that nobody it's a lot, and then after that it's boring, right because you're standing. There, sitting, you're sitting or hopefully you're sitting, but most of the time you're standing on you know, on the l east side if you're there. But yeah, yeah, I had a stretch where probably the first five years of my career, when I would have a ride along, the first ride along I ever had, I made an arrest on and that you know, you usually ride along so that our department would come in, they'd be with an officer and they go write some traffic tickets or something and then you know, the day's done. Right. I was like, no, I may I have one arrest. I want to carry that on. So for the first probably five years, I never had a ride along that I did not make an arrest ont. Oh, and that extended into you know, I had to ride along that witness to fight in front of my car, I had to ride along that witness the foot pursuit of mine that ended up being with a homicide suspect, like after the fact, and yeah, just some crazy stuff that I felt was good for them to see. You know, these citizens get to see something that they otherwise may have not have seen, you know. So did you do that? For about ten years? So I went into dispatch at twenty sixteen, and then PD twenty eighteen, and I left last year so it's about nine years. Okay, wow, gotcha. Yeah, And is is there a lot of court time? To you, it's a ton of court time I did. I did a lot of interdiction in my time, so I chose to be proactive and try to arrest people and get dope off the streets. And there was times where I would have three or four, you know, three or four page docket and I would just be there from nine in the morning to two o'clock in the afternoon. Well, so I wondered that because I've done a little stint myself for excess of speeding. And then one time Brian and I hunting near some game a hundred near. Some baby we did put nothing to do with. And so I've been in court twice. And I think, man, sitting here all day just people watching would be incredible. And your wife, I mean, she works at the courthouse, so I mean it's like literally stuff I could. I would be. Fascinated to watch it every day, But I don't think I could sit in and there all day long. Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I'm not sure people understand is and he can probably speak more to this, is there is a separation between the judge and the police officer. So it's I mean you the citizen, the police officer and the judge. They are not connected judge of the police office, not all. As a matter of fact, it's probably a little more stand offish on that. Right because it's definitely first right. The later part of my career, it definitely, in my opinion, it felt that way, not not to the extent that I felt like it was. It just it felt that we'll leave it at that, And you know, depending on what commonwealth attorney you have that that's with you. There's there's some really good attorneys that I worked with, and there were some that, you know, maybe I felt like didn't have my best interest in mind at times, sure, and that that complicated it too, and it compounds on itself when you're in court constantly, Like a person like myself would be there sometimes three four times a week. And when I was on midnight shift, it didn't matter if I had worked ten hours and I had been up since four o'clock the day before. I'm expected to either stay over to nine or go home and sleep for an hour and a half and put my uniform back on and be there at eleven. Wow, and that was brutal, you say, the least. I never thought about that. Oh yeah, there's just little That's what I'm saying. There's so many little things that I don't. You know, we talk about it all the time, about the sacrifices that you make. It's it's also why divorce rates are through the roof, because you just you don't there's not a lot of time, and it's brutal. Yeah, I don't know how my wife and I would do it right now with we have a fifteen month old at home, love her to death, and you know I left right after she was born, and thinking about the schedule that I had, and you know, I don't I don't think we would have been able to do it. You know, she would have had to cut hours back, and you know, she was making more than I was at the police department, you know, doing what she does. Say, it would have been tough. You know, she gets hours cut and then we're you know, juggling around who's taking her to the hitter and vice versa, and so yeah, it's really tough, all. Right, So tell us how you got into this next phase. Sure, So twenty twenty four comes around, actually, let's back up a little bit. Twenty twenty three, I had both my parents are self employed, you know, have been for as long as I can remember. You know, my dad in the racing industry, had his own business racing for you know, twenty thirty years, keeping up people's race cars. And then my mom had a cleaning business. And so that gene, I guess, was always there. And twenty twenty three I started developing an interest in real estate, so I started a real estate company with my brother in law, started flipping land and kind of got a taste of what that side of the fence looks like and just kind of some of the things that you know, are good on the entrepreneurial side and some of the freedoms that I could give you. And then I. My father in law, he's a successful entrepreneur back in Row Oak, and we would go on vacation and he'd be like, you got to start this cleaning company, and you know, do you have any coworkers that want to come out and earn some extra money? And I, you know, for like three years, we'd have the same conversation on the beach and I would be like, you know, I just haven't asked anybody, I don't know. And finally the third year it clicked and I was like, you know what, I'm out here trying to side hustle and at the police department make extra money. Why why have I not offered this up to co workers? And so I started cleaning company and did it, you know, very limited. I did not put a lot of time into it at the start. I was at the police department still, but then when we had our daughter, I just I said, I had a few bad shifts there at the end, and I said, it's either all or nothing. I'm just gonna take the jump down and leave. And so that's what I did, and just been on the road to you know, grind and figure it out since then. And you've been doing I guess three years. Yeah. So we won't really talk about the real estate company, and that's kind of hit or miss. But in terms of cleaning, we started it in August of twenty four, but I didn't really we were doing some more real estate stuff when I left the police department, and so since since then, you know, we really kicked up the gear on the cleaning company about summer of last year and really started trying to you know, hire employees and grow and since then it's really taken off. A couple key hires have helped me take off tremendously. I'll tell you what helped us want to invite you to come here is we're doing this. We like to do this series of American heroes, and so last year it was veterans that we talked to, and this year it's people that donate their time or help those in the community. Yeah, and when I heard about your story is not only are you a cleaning company that does work for you know, I guess houses and residential and commercial and all that, but you hire people that are in the workforces to help get them extra income, right. Right, yeah, Yeah, So I'll touch on that. So that's that's definitely the biggest value that we bring as a company. So my goal initially was just first responders in their family, so you know, we're talking police, fire rescue, corrections dispatchers and their direct family to come out and clean. And the idea behind that was too for one as the first responder. You know, I know what those families make in terms of income or I know what those jobs pay, and I know they need to earn more or most of them, they want to earn more and they look for that. So I thought, okay, well, let's allow them to have a non stressful way to come out and earn, not have to put their lives on the line on the police side, and not have to get more court time, right while also on the other side the business owners. So we are very strong and commercial about all, but two or three of our accounts are commercial accounts, and so the business owners, for one. In the cleaning industry, we kind of. Get a bad rap because a lot of the companies either they just don't show up, or they have problems with theft or things along those lines. So if I'm telling these businesses that, okay, we're bringing a first responder in, you know, maybe they're a corrections officer or whatnot. They're already vetted by a local government, you know, and I do my own background checks, and we do our state police background checks. But you know, sometimes it's monotonous. So this guy's a police officer, Like I got to send the state police background check to this you know, you know that kind of thing. But it gives them an extra blanket of security knowing that this is the person in they're building sure, and then we ended up this year expanding to healthcare U as well as public school teachers and people that are working in the public school scene. Very cool. Uh So, I mean your clientele obviously looking at your website is more geared to institutional I would say, uh, commercial buildings, things like that. Yeah, Uh do you you also do residential? Uh? I guess I would say after construction we do. Yeah. We we have a pretty strong clientele of contractors and flippers that we do work for. That comes a lot from my real estate you know experience as well, so that kind of you know, overlaps. So we do post construction and we'll do deep cleans. But our strong suit definitely is in the commercial recurrence where we can bring the most value because those those are the clients that are needing that trusted person that's always going to show up and not you know, steal from them or whatnot in their business. So how would you say business is going on? How many employees? How many people do you think you have of on average at a time do you have working with you right now? I have seven. I've been up as high as nine. We had a wave of growth this year we've we've tripled and recurrent account size this year, so that since January one, so we we serve right now, twenty three businesses in run Oak and Daleville won a newcastle and they were intending on or We're fairly confident. We're expanding into Franklin County as well by the end of the summer. So we're looking to hire about four or five more for that expansion. That's awesome. I love young people that sweat, I mean, just and grind. And you called it entrepreneurial and we talked about this when we were kids. That was a badge of honor, like they actually taught it. We literally had classes that talked about what the word entrepreneur entrepreneur is. And now it doesn't. Seem like I never had that. Yeah, never had that. It's unbelievable. Did you say that spirit? I thought that was one of the things. Oh, I can't I want to do something like that. Right, Well, well, I'm saying I had the spirit, but I never had the class. Like it's all like, you know that that was not something that was uh instructed like how to how to how to even start what is a LLC? Like you know that was all stuff that I had to look it up. But we know the Pythagorean theorem, right the love. We don't know the stuff you really need to know. Yeah, we don't know the Hennenburg right right. So I had a fire own tax, you know. So what interested me? You were in our office and we were talking the other thing I thought was really cool and if you could touch on this a little bit. You mentioned your dad and racing, and Brian is a big race fan, and we talked about mister Busher and the T shirt he got me and all that stuff, and we're big NASCAR fans. Oh, we sponsor car and we sponsored car at Pulaski. Yeah. So uh, Corey done all right? Done racing? And so just tell a little bit about you. You said you were in the cart series and and you went on tour a little bit, and just talk about that as a younger kid, what that did for you. Well, I think I think I'll touch on this piece a little too, because I think the entrepreneurial background will kind of come out here. So, yeah, my dad was primarily local series NASCAR Crucie for for several years, but they also did the Pro Cup series with multiple drivers. He won a championship in ninety eight with Jeff Agnu with the USA R Pro Cup Series. He also ran with Johnny Rumley into Bush Series and then he's been with I don't know how many late model racers, probably fifty or more one Martinsville, you know, with late model drivers. He's done some pretty incredible things. And so huge deal Martinsville. Yes it is. I grew up, you know, all over the place at the racetrack, and so there's kind of a time period in between that and when I started racing. Where I was, I loved Airsoft a little, you know, plastic BB guns, and so my dad had a race shop in Stewartsville at the time, and I wanted to start getting people together and play an Airsoft games. So I advertised it on Facebook. Was the first group. You know, it's before Ronaque Airsoft, and so I had people showing up from all over the place. I didn't even have waivers for him to sign, and so, needless to say, the landlord at the the race shop was not happy. We had to relocate fields. We'll just put it that way. But I was in the paper. I was in Runnick Times for that. Still got that one hanging up. But then so enter the racing world. So my dad he never drove with exception of carts, and there was always this bent up purple and yellow KRT chassis that was sending the race shop all the time. And I was a kid growing up, I never really thought anything of it. Well, one day I asked him, and I have a picture on my phone the front left frame rare I was bent up probably six inches on it. And I come to find out he was racing at Montvale down here one night after I had been born, and he got into a crash that ended up sending the other guy. He got airlifted by lifeguard tend from Montville Speedway. And so my dad never caught raced again after that. And so then naturally I'm like, all right, well it's cart racing. And so. My dad was with his last late model client. He had Derek Lancaster out of Christiansburg, and we were at the racetrack that year of twenty eleven and we went and bought a really old chassis. It was like a ten year old KRT chassis. And I started going to this track and Henry called Providence it was our home track, and got my feet wet with it. You know. I was terrible the first year I was learning, and we ended up buying a new chassis that year, but he wouldn't let me drive it until he could be at the racetrack with me. So that second year we went back and we just kind of took off. So Providence was our home track, but we ended up traveling in a few different series. The Tri State Series was a big series at that time. Carting was kind of in its heyday, so I raced for four or so years. We ended up keep getting into the entrepreneurial side of that. We ended up keeping up some kids carts. I don't know if you're familiar with Bugman and the Niningers, but Kip was a driver that we kept up his carts for a while out of our shop, and we went to the racetrack together and I did the tires and I kept the carts up and we won some races. So it was pretty cool. That's cool. It is cool. You know, oftentimes I wonder and I really would like to learn that side of the racing, the business side of it. Like I know, it cost a lot of money, yeah, and I know, you know, it's a lot of money that to us that we give for the sponsorship, but don't. I don't. The numbers don't line up in my head of how these guys do it. It's never lined up for me. And I know a little bit of it on the cart side, because I know, like just carting is the base level, so everything goes up from here. But for what we were doing, we were carting at it. I wouldn't say the top of the top level because we could compete against them guys, But we couldn't do it every weekend because we couldn't afford to travel and get to the track every weekend. But at that time in twenty twelve, we were going to the track with about twenty twenty five sets of tires and the trailer. A case of tires was about six hundred bucks at the time, so a case of six sets, so you do the math. I'm just the tires. Brand new chassis then was about thirty five hundred bucks. Motors were about one thousand trailers. Your trailer to get to the track, fuel, entry fees, all tools you need to keep the stuff up. So the only way for us that it made sense was keeping up the kids cards. So you know, the parents would approach us and say, you guys, are you know competitive, And my kid wants to get into something and do it, and so they would pay you to keep up the equipment, do the tires, get them to the track. And at that point it was like, Okay, I might be break even on my cost or a little bit less. I'm spending a little more than break even. So on the upper levels. It's really just because I have a racing itch to go back racing. Right now. My wife kills me for it, but I keep telling her. By the end of the next year too, I'm going to go back racing somewhere. Late model. I want to be in a late model. That's what I've I've went up to Canada and raced a open wheel modified that's my big car experience. And I've done some stuff at vr R, non competitively. But I want to get into a late model. And I called my dad two weeks ago. I said, I'd pay my way into a ride if I can, if I have enough money for it, and I know somebody's got a ride, I'll pay my way into one just to get in get in the seat. But yeah, it's I don't lost a lot of money money wise, I don't. Yeah, I just I've tried to figure it out. Although right now the late Model series is blowing up everywhere it is, I mean, and I'm so excited to see it. Yeah. There about five years ago, there was a team that we used to cart race with. It's Hill Billy Racing. Derek Hill was the cart racer we used to race with. But they have a tour mode. I guess it's smart. Modified is that they're running the seventy nine car. And back about if maybe it was more than five years ago, but somebody had passed down to me that that car, you could get in that car for a weekend for like two thousand dollars. And I sat there and I did the math, like napkin math. I'm like, that does not make sense. Like, I'm like it two thousand dollars. Well, if I get into a crash, it's not my fault. Am I coming out fifty grand to fix this thing? Like? What's what's the deal? I don't understand that on the paid to drive side. But yes, it's very intriguing to me. How these teams do it. I don't know how they do it. Wow. So also very cool all. Right, well, it was great catching up. Do you got any No, No, it's I was impressed. A you're young, you're ambitious. Your story is really cool. We wanted you to be able to tell it. And if you can give a shout out. How do people hire you to have your responders coupling their office? Yep, so you can find us on Facebook or Instagram. It's First Response Building Services. I'm just spelt all the way out. And we also have a website, First Response Building Services dot com. Probably the easiest way to contact me is my phone number on there, or you can. You can shoot us a message too, but I make it a goal if that phone rings we pick up, you know, in the first two rings. Yeah, that's the goal. All right, before you get out of here. We always ask our guests if you could choose anybody in history or current to hang out with for a twenty four hour period, who would it be and where would you hang out with them? Oh? Man, just anybody in history. Shoot let me thank you. You know this is going to be on the nerdier business side of it, but I would probably say just to watch him Steve Jobs, just a yeah, just to see how he leads people and try to maybe not emulate everything he does, but just learn how he did what he did with what he had. It's the first time we ever had that answer. That's really cool, man. We always we're always shocked. Yeah, you just never know what people are going to say, but that's cool kind of. It also gives you a little leeway into the mindset of the people that you're talking with, so I can see that that's a great question. I enjoyed doing. All right, well, thanks again, sever owner of First Response Building Services. Awesome. Thanks guys,