In part one of our powerful two-part conversation with Garrett Moore, we dive deep into the extraordinary origin story of a man who’s not only a Division I quarterback and a US Navy SEAL but also the co-founder and CEO of TektonOS reshaping the construction industry. This episode is a masterclass in leadership, resilience, and the strength of high-performing teams. Key Highlights: - Global travel, family values, and early exposure to leadership shaped Garrett’s childhood. - Life at Stanford football under Jim Harbaugh, and lessons from an elite sports culture. - The journey from quarterback to Navy SEAL, and the life-defining experience of BUD/S training. - Endurance, teamwork, and decision-making under extreme pressure. - How one phone call from his wife during a mission would eventually define Garrett’s next mission—rebuilding trust and efficiency in construction. You won't want to miss this if you're interested in leadership, resilience, or simply hearing a great story.
Welcome back to Strong Conversations
recording here in Las Vegas as part
of the International Builder Show.
I am Sam Marcoux, and he is quite possibly the most
interesting man in the building industry.
And you guys are gonna agree with me at the end
of this, Mr. Garrett Moore. Garrett, how are you?
I'm doing really well, Sam. Well, we're gonna do,
I'm gonna tell everybody up front,
this is the first two part episode,
maybe the only two part episode
that we'll ever do here at Strong Conversations.
And that is because I think leading up to this, you
and I sat down and had, what, three different prep calls
for this episode today.
Yeah, yeah. And you have so much
that you have done in your life, so much going on right now
and in your past, and you're so interesting that myself,
Nate Johnson, our, our mutual friend, we're like, this is,
has to be a two part episode at a minimum.
He wanted to go to three, by the way,
but I think we're gonna stop at two parts.
So for everyone listening, this is part one.
This is the backstory, this is the origin of Garrett Moore.
And then we're gonna get into some of the business stuff
and what you're doing currently at the end.
But speaking of currently, tell everybody who you are,
what you do, who you do it for,
and then we'll jump into the, uh, overall story.
Garrett Moore, CEO of Tektonos uh, married my child who
of sweetheart, father of three.
Uh, that ultimately sets
kind of the tone for everything else.
And, uh, so yeah, that's who I do it for.
Right on. So let's start from the beginning.
You were born, uh, up in northern California, right? Yep.
So where were you born? Uh,
I was actually born in Stanford Hospital.
Stanford Hospital. Yep. All right.
Everybody keep track of that,
because that's gonna come into play a whole lot later.
You didn't stay in Northern California too long, right?
No, uh, I lived there till I was five,
so just a little bit after the 1989 earthquake.
Uh, I laugh about this to this day.
Mom and dad left the Bay Area
because the late eighties was too high,
too high paced, and too frenetic.
Little did they know where it would go
over the next, you know, 20, 30 years.
Right. So we, uh, moved out to Scottsdale, Arizona. Okay.
Uh, and so that's where I grew up. Yeah.
Now you have siblings, correct?
I do. I'm the oldest of three.
Uh, there's three of us, between three of us in three
and a half years, so we're all pretty compressed. Oh,
Okay. Yeah. So growing
up were like,
were you're, you have a brother and a sister?
Yep. So middle is a sister. Youngest as a brother.
And were you guys like best friends on top
of being, you know, siblings? Yeah, we
Were pretty, I mean, frenemies 'cause you're siblings,
but, uh, no, very, very close.
Uh, you know,
grew up drowning each other in the pool and having a great time.
Um, parents were always really involved,
so we did a lot of travel as a kid.
Okay. My, uh, my dad was a school teacher
and owned a restaurant sports bar.
My mom was a flight attendant, so we didn't have a ton
of money, but as a flight attendant,
we could travel like we were kings.
Yeah. So that was kind of the thing that we did
as a family was we got to travel all over the world.
Do you, do you, do you remember like your first trip
or like the most memorable trip as a family?
As a, as a child?
So, the most memorable trip was actually
before my mom became a flight attendant.
So my folks, uh, my folks are crazy in a really good way.
They got a be in their bonnet
to go ahead and move overseas.
So I was homeschooled early elementary,
come my fifth grade year, they're like, screw it.
Let's live on a wild and crazy.
So we moved over to Italy
and so I, I lived in Italy for a year, drop
of a hat on a whim.
So that was a really impactful trip when you're an
11-year-old boy
and you're living overseas and experiencing the world.
So that was, that was probably the, like the first major
trip that opened my eyes to the world.
I was gonna say, you eyes have
to be wide open at 11 years old.
You're living in Italy and just with the family unit, right?
Oh, yeah. Like you said, you guys are all close in age
And you're a sponge at that age.
Yeah. You pick up language and food and culture
and it was, it was really, uh, really eye-opening
as we kinda get to the later part of my story
and thinking about my appreciation
for a more global perspective
and kind of having broader, broader aperture,
that was really foundational for me.
Yeah. And it's got to be so, uh, all, for all intents
and purposes, Scottsdale's home though, right?
Yep. In terms of being your childhood. Yep.
Um, you were heavy into sports growing up,
Sports and school.
So what was the, uh, what was,
what was the sport or sports that you were playing?
Uh, I kinda like to play everything. Yeah.
Uh, really basketball was my favorite sport, really.
Not very, not very good at it.
Um, but it got to the point where you get to high school
and then I kind of, I had a, I had a basketball coach
that made me choose my sophomore year, Hey,
I'll put you on varsity basketball or, uh,
or varsity football.
And I hated that 'cause I wanted to do both.
They were different seasons. Um, so
that never really landed very well with me,
but at that point, I am 15, 16, had to make a decision
and go, is there a future in either of these sports?
I kind of looked at it and said, probably not in basketball,
therefore I'll choose football.
So double down on football from there. Yeah.
I had the same, uh, dilemma in middle school, but it was
after one game of basketball
and I realized I wasn't very good,
so I was gonna go find another sport to play.
I didn't have the same issue you had.
It was more of the coach like, look, you can't be here.
Like, go find a different sport. So same but different.
I would, uh, same. Same, I would say. Yeah.
So, uh, what position did you play in football?
00:05:22.465 --> 00:05:26.325
Um, so not very athletic growing up.
Still not very athletic to this day. Not very fast.
Can't really jump. So they put me a quarterback. Yeah.
Because I was like, yeah, it's, that's the position
that you can kind of get by, I guess,
with the least athleticism.
Um, so I stumbled into that
and, uh, actually found a, a really strong liking for it.
I like the, the chess of it, I like the leadership.
I like the ability to, um, orchestrate
and kind of be a conductor or a general on the field.
Yeah. And it didn't highlight my weaknesses,
which are kind of more the physical attributes. Well,
Look, Dan Marino is one of the greatest quarterbacks
of all time, and I think he rushed for a total
of like 13 yards in his entire,
that's why he had the 13 as his number.
It was a representative of, of his yards
running after 17 years.
So, you're right. It maybe, it, it, it kind of masks some
of the, uh, the athletic, uh, defects, if you will.
Right, exactly. Okay. So you're playing quarterback.
You've made this choice as 15, 16 years old, uh, to go
with varsity football instead of varsity basketball.
Uh, you finish up your high school career in terms
of both academics and athletics.
Yep. And what happens next? Where do you go?
I, uh, played my last game my senior year.
Uh, didn't, didn't expect
college football to be on the horizon.
I, I'd done kind of visits and,
and kind of seen some, some, some different schools,
but academics was a priority
and I kind of was self-aware enough to know, like, look,
this is, this is a great chapter,
but it's probably gotta come to an a, a close.
Yeah. I gotta spend some time on academics.
And, you know, that'll ultimately carry, carry the, the,
the male forward after the season.
Um, and ended up getting a call from, from Stanford
and they said, Hey, we'd like you to come, come play for us.
At the time, it was a, a guy named Buddy VINs.
And, um, that was, that was perfect because I was gonna try
and go there even if I wasn't playing sports anyway.
Um, and so was fortunate enough to get in
and at that point it was a slam dunk and, and no brainer.
And I had kind of grown up, uh, young man
wants to make his way in the world.
My parents had gone to school at Stanford
and I was like, no, this is not for me.
I'm gonna do my own thing. I'm gonna go
to the East coast, or I'm gonna do something else.
Yeah. And then just time goes on
and fell in love with the farm.
It was a great place. Uh, obviously great academics, uh,
great athletics, football notwithstanding.
And, um, it was just the right fit. It was home for me.
So, born in Stanford? Yes.
You know, world traveled, 11 years old, living in Italy,
Scottsdale with your, your, uh, younger sister
and brother playing football back to Stanford,
back to where it all began.
Uhhuh to play quarterback for the Stanford Cardinals. Yep.
Now, when you were there, you had a lot
of head coaches, right?
I did. I went through three
and three and a half years. Who are
Those coaches? So my
first one was Buddy VINs, uh,
who ended up going on to coach at Dartmouth.
He's actually passed away since then from an accident.
Uh, Walt Harris was my second coach.
He had, he was coming from University of Pittsburgh,
uh, was a rough chapter.
And then ultimately the third coach is the one
that's made notoriety.
'cause he was Jim Harbaugh. Yeah,
Jim Harbaugh, who currently, as we record this,
is the head coach for the Los Angeles Chargers,
Formerly San Diego Chargers. Really
Tough for me to not say San
Diego. Not bitter at all, whatsoever.
Whatsoever. We'll, we'll get to San Diego later, later in,
uh, in your story here.
So, um, I think we, let's focus a little bit on Jim Harbaugh
because he is the head coach of the Stanford Cardinals,
and he had a lot of success.
He's had success everywhere he's gone,
including down in San Diego, uh, as,
as a college coach as well.
What was it like playing football under the tutelage
of Jim Harbaugh as the head coach?
So he is one of the most energetic,
passionate, driven coaches I've ever come across.
And I think the best way I could describe him is intense.
Yeah. And the good and the bad.
Everything he does is a thousand miles an hour.
And I think that's what allows him to be such a, an agent
of transformation in programs.
Because if you wanna turn a program around in a year
or two, you've gotta bring, he used to have a phrase, uh,
I think it was, he used to say an intensity
or do something with an intensity unknown to mankind,
just like a thousand miles an hour.
Yeah. And that's a shot across the bow
and a shock to a system where the year
before we went one in 11, you're kind of down in the dumps.
You got beat by a one AA team in, in,
um, uc Davis at the time.
And that was a, a really big breath of fresh air.
Uh, he also valued the student athlete paradigm
coming from Michigan himself.
And so it was a, um, he's just a, he was a whirlwind
and a force to be reckoned with,
and that was really
excellent for the program and it was needed.
So that's like an overall, like you said,
that transformation of, of turning that Stanford program
around and doing it quickly.
Right. Yeah. He didn't really have time to waste, so he had
to expedite everything.
Um, can you gimme an example of, of his coaching,
and you have a story that you could share
with everybody when it comes to Jim
Harbaugh being the head coach?
I do, and it's actually a story
after I had, uh, I had left.
So I ended up, um,
I saw the handwriting on the wall pretty quickly, uh,
or we'll come back to that later.
Yeah. But I ended up graduating a little bit early, um,
left, left school, uh, and, and pursued another career.
But when I came back, I came back to,
I think I was speaking at, um, I was speaking at one
of the chaplain services before the game,
and he had invited me back.
And so I was on the sidelines or whatever,
and here we are, like, I think it was down,
it was, it was actually in Pasadena.
It was at the Rose Bowl. It was, it was a game against UCLA.
And here he is, he now knows I'm, I'm a SEAL at the point
and coming back and he wants to challenge me
to a pushup contest on the field before the game.
Like, he's so competitive.
You have Jim Harbaugh challenging you,
which spoiler alert we'll get to you were a Navy seal.
It, it was, it was just like he couldn't compete.
He's like, okay, somebody that's doing something
that's atypical or whatever,
but I've got to, not out of ego,
but just out of a consummate competitor.
Yeah. And it was just like, let's do it. I wanna compete.
It's like, oh, you're a marathon runner.
Like, let's, I mean, you can't go run a marathon,
but the point is like, everything he does is
so incredibly competitive
and that's infectious to a team. Yeah.
I mean, you, you, you, where the head
goes, the body will follow, right?
I mean, and that's, that's, you see that
with Jim Harbaugh in particular, everywhere he's gone,
including now what the chargers turn 'em
around in one season and now they're a playoff,
you know, super Bowl contender.
Yeah. It's, it's incredible.
So, I mean, there, there's, there's leadership there
that you can, you know, just take and,
and apply later in your life.
But we're gonna jump back to your playing days
because Jim Harbaugh's the coach.
Yep. You're last year there, if I'm not mistaken.
You're a quarterback. Yep.
But you weren't playing a lot, right? Nope. Why was that? So
The simple answer is just surrounded
by way more talented folks.
Um, and you, you, you come in outta high school
and usually high school players, you know,
you're a big fish in small pond wherever you grow up,
and then you step up a notch.
And some people are still big fishes in that pond. Yeah.
But most of the time it's just, it's a shot across the bow
of like, holy smokes, these folks are bigger, stronger,
better, all cross the board, all
of which are great friends to this day
and stay in contact with them.
But the nature of college sports is, so I was sitting
behind a guy named Trent Edwards for first few years.
He went on to play in the NFL. Yeah.
And then there's a leapfrog effect, right?
So at the time we were recruiting a young man named Andrew
that by all accounts was, seemed to be very talented.
He's a junior or senior out Texas.
And you start to run the math and look at it
and go, I, I probably am going to get leapfrog.
This is not in the, in the cards.
And you, and you also do some,
some self-reflection go, is this gonna be a future?
Can I go play in the NFL?
And the reality is, no, you can, you can,
you can do the math if you've got enough self-awareness.
And so at that point, that also happened
to be when I started to thinking about, okay,
what's next?
Yeah. And obviously it was a little oppression at the time.
'cause that guy ended up being, becoming
Andrew Luck, who's, yeah.
Now back at the farm as a, as a general manager.
And he's gonna do awesome things for the program.
And I'm, I'm super, super excited.
Um, but it's just, it's the reality of college sports.
Like there's a lot of talent.
So that self-reflection that you talked about was
that some, some people have zero ability to do that.
They're not introspective.
They don't know what their limitations are.
They don't know what their, you know,
maximum effort would be.
Um, you seem to have that at least.
Was that developed in college
or was that something you've always had, like,
I know I can do this, I can't do that.
I have to plan according,
or where did that come about? Do you know?
I don't know. The cheeky answer would be like, Hey,
when you've always been
mediocre, you don't know anything different.
Like, that's probably not, that's probably not correct.
I think, um, specifically at that time, I'm growing
and coming of age as a young man.
I had a really influential experience.
A good friend of mine from high school, uh,
played football, basketball, everything with him.
He ended up committing suicide. Oh.
And that kind of, that was the first like, holy smokes,
slap in the face kind of close death experience.
And one of the things that,
that he really valued was military service.
But growing up in Arizona, like parents didn't serve. Yeah.
Nobody around me served.
So that probably started a little bit
of the self-reflection journey.
It was continued because I did an internship
and did some management consulting for a little bit.
Hated it. And so you're kinda looking at this going, man,
I love this teamwork, this comradery,
this bond of a common purpose.
I'm not really feeling it in the business world,
but I'm capped.
I can't keep going on and playing sports.
The talent's not there, et cetera. What do I do? Right?
What's my place in the world?
Where can I make a dent in the universe?
And that, that causes you to kinda do some thinking. Yeah.
So like you said, that that teamwork that you got, that,
you know, how many, how many student athletes are there on
a, on a typical college football roster,
it's like 90 or something like that. Is it more than that?
Um, we carried about a hundred to 105. Okay.
Any given year dependent. So,
Uh, let's just say a hundred for easy math.
I'm a sales guy, zeros and fives. Right? Perfect.
But, uh, a hundred athletes, like you said, all
of them were big fish in a small pond at
one point of their lives.
Oh yeah. They come together, they have to work as a team.
Yeah. And they have to be efficient.
And you have a coaching staff that they are designed
to get the most out of them.
Right. The maximum amount of effort out of all
of these students, all of these kids,
whatever you wanna say, and get them
pulling all in the same direction.
Yep. It's incredibly difficult. Yep.
Whether it's football
or any other business venture to have
that many people doing the same thing
at the same time, the right way.
You, you had talked before, you loved that functionality.
Oh yeah. You loved that teamwork.
Like you said, you're capped,
you're not feeling it in business quite yet.
You're capped when it comes to the athletic side of things.
Uh, you don't have a lot of military background,
at least in your immediate family,
but you decide to take that leap and join the military.
Yeah. So the, the, the silly logic in the brain
of a 20-year-old, which by the way, that brain doesn't,
isn't fully firm form for a few more years,
but you're making big decisions.
So 20-year-old Garrett was like, huh, the
00:15:35.345 --> 00:15:39.285
military's kind of like sports for adults.
Let's try this. Let's try this thing out.
Like, I kind of grew up with good down home value.
So like the idea of service to a greater cause,
pushing yourself bleeding red, white,
and blue, like that was easy.
It was just kind of, okay, where do you point that? Yeah.
That underlying current.
And so my, my buddy's passing kind of caused
that self-reflection and it was like, you know what?
I could get on board with that,
but in, for a penny in for a pound.
Like, why not try something harder
and look into special operations?
So I remember, um, I actually remember exactly, uh, I went
to a local library, uh, preseason,
or no, it was during the season, um,
grabbed a book on the Navy Seals, and I remember reading it.
Uh, we were up at playing up at, uh, Oregon at the, uh,
up at Autzen, by the way.
Which is an insane stadium. Yeah.
When people talk about Autzen being one
of the loudest in the country, Simpson Engineering, uh,
they funnel all the sound directly onto the field.
It is every bit as loud
as it's cracked up to be really cool.
Uh, acoustic engineering in a stadium, by the way.
Um, so I was up there,
00:16:39.875 --> 00:16:42.365
read this book about the Navy Seals called Warrior Elite
and was like, holy smokes, this guy stay up for days.
Sounds utterly miserable.
Who in their right mind would ever do this to himself?
But it planted a seed.
Yeah.
And that seed just kind of nagged and nagged and nagged,
and it wouldn't go away.
And by the end of the season, I remember being like, man,
that's, that's really cool.
It was no, no longer like a hell no. No way.
It was, whoa, what if, what if, what if?
And so that's where I really started to kind
of go through the motions.
And again, superficial brain of a 20-year-old,
I was like, oh, they're in San Diego.
Yeah. I can, I can get
on board with that. I can live there.
Yeah. So the what if phrase is probably the most powerful
and dangerous two,
two word phrase in the history of language, right?
Yeah. Because so much has come out of what if. Yeah.
And it doesn't matter what you're talking about in any line
of, you know, work or anything else.
But you said the book was,
now did you know you were gonna go
into the military at that point?
You just didn't know maybe which branch
or you, you wanted to do special ops but you didn't know.
No, it was just like a wide open canvas.
Hey, this concept seems to check the boxes.
You get to make your dent in the universe.
You get to do physical stuff Yeah.
With a team that works together for a common mission
and has, has value for making society better.
Like, we're kind of checking most of the boxes here. Yeah.
Um, and so as I started
to kinda think about special operations,
spent some time looking at Green Beret, ranger pair
of rescue, uh, marsoc wasn't even really stood up at the
time and kept coming back to this.
And so I ended up getting put in touch with,
um, recruiters and recruiters kind of redirect you.
And I met a couple seals and I was like, holy smokes.
That's a kind of fraternity
or brotherhood I wanna be a part of.
So I fell in love with a, the people
and the com the comradery and teamwork that I saw.
And at that point I was, I was sold.
So that's now where I'm in my red shirt, sophomore season,
end of red shirt, sophomore season.
Uh, Walt Harris has, has been fired.
Jim Harbaugh's coming in that spring. That spring.
I said, okay, well, during spring ball I'll start to,
I'll start to cross train.
Yeah. And so I started training
for triathlon down in San Diego.
Okay. It's like, okay, let's stretch the body.
Test endurance. I grew up, I grew up in the water,
so swimming wasn't an issue.
Started to train, train, train,
and realized actually my body actually was wired
for endurance all the 40 times in the vertical
and all the things that I wanted in
football that I couldn't get.
Yeah. My body was actually much more of a,
a distance capability.
And so, um, spring ball comes around, I'm cross training,
um, get put in touch with a recruiter, put a package in.
He says, Hey, look, dude, your dad's not an admiral.
Nobody gets selected to become a seal
unless you go to the Naval Academy.
Like, don't even bother. I was like, well, humor me.
I got nothing to lose. I got two more seasons.
I can keep playing. I can keep doing this.
He's like, okay, fine. You're gonna apply
for three or four more years if that's what it takes.
Like, okay, fine. No drama, put in an application.
And then got picked up right
after spring ball is kind of like May or June timeframe.
Oh, wow. So, um, at that point they said, Hey, you can,
you can ship out pretty quick at the credits
to graduate a little bit early.
So I remember walking, uh,
walking into Coach Harbaugh's office, uh, right
before the summertime said, Hey, coach,
I got a passion to do something else.
This is not a reflection of, of you or the team.
Um, I love this team and I would die for this team,
but there's this other thing that I, it's,
it's a niche I can't scratch.
And to his credit, he was like, absolutely, go do it.
Do not let us stand in your way.
Like we will be cheering you on Go Crush.
Um, so put in the early, early, uh,
early graduation paperwork
and ended up shipping out about six months later.
What year is this now? Uh,
This is, uh, oh seven.
So 2007 in that timeframe. Harbaugh has his first coach.
Harbaugh has his first season.
Uh, my buddy Tavita Pritchard has the,
the major upset at USC that year.
So that was what really put Stanford on the map.
I was like 45 point underdogs with I think Matt Liner,
I think was the QB that year.
That might have been Reggie Bush's last year as well. Okay.
Huge upset. Stanford's now on, on the map. Yeah.
For Harbaugh's turning it around, uh, right
after the season I ship out. Okay.
All right. So 2007, um, that season ends,
like you said, they're on the upswing.
Yep. Harbaugh's Magic is starting to Yep.
You know, uh, show up.
Um, but you said, okay,
not only am I joining the Navy, I'm gonna be a seal.
Yeah. Take me through that onboarding
to be a seal with, with everything that goes into it,
that's gotta be absolutely monumental. So
It starts with, um,
my parents don't know any about this,
anything about this at this time. So this is, you
Hadn't told your parents? Oh, no.
So, well, I hadn't told them.
So I, I snuck down to Southern California for a triathlon.
They're like, oh, that's kind of strange.
They knew I was doing the triathlon while I was down there.
I pulled 'em aside and said, Hey, mom, dad, um, you know, I,
I got something to share with you.
Like, this is gonna come outta left field, uh, you know,
want you to support me no matter what.
And their, their brain is
spinning through all kinds of stuff.
Right. You murdered somebody, you're fleeing the country.
Like their brain is going a thousand different directions.
And, uh, and finally said, I'm like, Hey,
I wanna be become a Navy sailor.
Oh, thank God you didn't kill anybody.
You're not gonna jail. Awesome. This is great.
Oh, you might die in combat. Okay. No drama.
Uh, and so that started a journey of
where is this coming from?
Why would you do this? Why not go into business?
Do whatever you wanna do. Yeah. Like, you gotta, and,
and so that, um, that starts kind of a growth process
with family and friends,
but the more time goes on, the more they get on board.
Okay. So now I'm, I'm, everybody's tracking. I'm on board.
Okay. So I go out to Officer Candidate School, which is
where you earn your commission out in Rhode Island.
Uh, miserable. Way worse than Buds.
I would really, I hated it.
Rhode Island in January, February, March. Cold, cold. Yeah.
Just getting yelled at for no reason.
It was a huge sucker punch.
I was immature and unprepared for the good order
and discipline of the military.
That was, that was really hard. But you come back from that.
And then essentially the way that program works is you're
guaranteed a shot to go to Buds as an officer.
So you, you show up, uh, day one in San Diego,
it's probably April of 2008 at this time.
Okay. And it's game on.
Like ultimately you pseudo control your destiny.
Don't, don't quit and you can stick around.
So, uh, we're talking
to Garrett Moore here on Strong Conversations.
He's taking us through the origin story.
We've, we've made it through childhood.
We've made it through Stanford
with Jim Harbaugh and Andrew Luck.
We're now into the Navy. And you mentioned Buds.
Explain to everybody what Buds is in the context
of being a Navy seal.
So Buds is, um, kind
of a time arted tradition slash rite
of passage slash selection process.
So basically under water demolition seal training
comes outta like OSS World War II era legacy.
So it really hasn't changed much in the last 50, 60 years.
Wow. The general concept is, uh,
you bring a bunch of young men to the table
and you're trying to screen out who has
what it takes to become a part of this.
And the best way to do that would be shoot a bunch
of bullets at you and see what you do under pressure.
It's unethical. That's illegal.
Can't do that for a whole bunch of reasons. Right.
So the way that Buds accomplishes that is crank up the pain
and the discomfort in a humane way to see what you, when,
when all, when all of the, the top cover is stripped away,
what's that underlying thing?
What's there? Do you double down on your teammates?
Do you act, Excel, et cetera?
And so in general, now, now Buds is, and,
and SEAL training is more publicized.
There's lots of books and shows, et cetera.
But in general, the concept is
you've got three phases of training.
The first phase is of selection phase,
second phase of water training.
Third phase is a, is a, is a land and,
and kind of, um, more infantry type training.
And so in that first phase, the first four weeks is largely
where the, the bulk of the attrition comes.
Okay. And the fourth week culminates in what's called hell
week, which, um, has gotten some notoriety.
And essentially the concept is,
we're gonna keep you up for a full week.
You're gonna run whatever it is, 50, a hundred miles.
Um, we're gonna make you very cold and very uncomfortable.
And as a student, you think they're trying to kill you.
Like they do a really good job of the charade.
Now, on the backside as an instructor, you realize
how calculated, how meticulous it is.
Yeah. Like water temperature,
tables, there's all kinds of stuff.
But at the point is, I'm going to go to the very edge of
what I can legally get away with
and still keep you safe to see what you're made of.
Right. Yeah. And while this sounds really
sadistic, I loved it.
I loved being tested.
I loved being thrown in the crucible and being tempered.
Well, and to your point, you know,
at this point you've even figured out,
you mentioned a little bit earlier, your body is
almost like predestined for endurance training. Oh.
And cold water. This marbling,
I've been working on this my entire life.
This is to keep me warm,
But I mean that survival Right.
And keeping going and figuring out a way to, to overcome
and learn and adapt Yeah.
And all those things that go along with that.
So it doesn't surprise me that you, I mean,
was it ever a consideration for you
to say, this is not for me.
I've bit off too much and, and I can't chew this.
No. Everybody has their thing in bud.
So I was joking about cold water.
Like I am not the leanest person on the block.
So cold water training never really bothered me. Right.
The running never bothered me.
What I hated was what's called log pt,
which is essentially a telephone pulse.
'cause I'm not super strong upper body. Ah.
So it's a lot of overhead, it's a lot of lunges.
So everybody's got their thing. Yeah.
The water was comfortable for me.
Most of the land stuff was, so I loved it.
You're doing a bunch of hard stuff with your buddies
and you're really starting to bond.
And the early stages
of those bond pay dividends decades later.
Yeah. Because when you go
through something really challenging with people around you,
there's a trauma bond, I guess.
Yep. So to speak. Um,
and I loved more than anything else,
I loved those relationships and still happen to this day.
Yeah. And, and, and I think, like you said,
the trauma bond, it, you, you, you've all been
through something together and understand what it means
to go down and then back up through it.
Yes. Right. So you just have the almost an unspoken
mutual respect for one another.
Yes. Going through that. Um, it's, it's fascinating to me
because in talking to you
before this show, we talked about all these things,
obviously, but we didn't,
we didn't focus a lot on the military service.
We, you, you, you, you set yourself up in a way
where you talk about it, but then, you know, you move on.
Like you don't, you don't boast your chest about this.
Which is, uh, I think a lot
of people have a misnomer about folks
that have served about that.
And, and anyway, it's, it's interesting to me.
I don't wanna spend all the time here on part one in the
military, but it's a fascinating story.
I mean, there's not too many people that could be a
quarterback, you know,
for a division one school like Stanford and a Navy Seal
Probably doesn't speak well to the bar of entry
for either of those organizations.
They're gonna go back and re take a look at it.
Like, yeah, our selection standards need to change.
How did that one make it through?
So you get through buds, you get
through all the training, um, talk.
Can you tell what's the first time they're like, okay,
you're shipping out and where did you go?
Um, so the very
first, so welcome to the military.
So checking into my first team, uh, at this point I have,
now I'm engaged to my childhood sweetheart.
Yeah. We're engaged, uh, post-graduation.
I'm checking into my first team
and surprise like, Hey,
you're gonna rush up your deployment.
We're gonna do an extended, extended stint in
Iraq and Afghanistan at the time.
Um, and as a husband, I was like,
babe, I don't wanna do this.
This is hard. I don't wanna leave you.
And inside the inter operator. And he was like, hell yeah.
Do this. Let's do this. I've been training for this.
I'm excited. I,
and so, uh, you do standard kind
of general seal workup is you'll do 18 months of training
with your platoon or your trooper, your command,
and then you deploy for six months.
That deployment ended up being a long one doing due
to politics and dynamics in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So we ended up having to search for a little while.
Um, and so in that process, you're, you're refining all
of the more advanced skills, advanced water skills,
driving skills, jumping outta airplane skills.
Um, and so you're really kind of gelling as a team
because you've got the baseline.
Yeah. You've all been through the same experience,
but now you've got new faces.
And that gets into like, you're,
it's little, these little details.
And I keep coming back to teamwork.
'cause this is where we're ultimately going.
It's how can you read your buddy's body language in the
middle of the night when you're on night vision?
How can, you know with certainty when you walk into a room,
they're gonna go this way
and you go that way to protect them.
Those little read
and react pick up basketball type dynamics.
Yeah. That is, that's what you have to learn over the,
over the next 18 months.
And so you go through that process
and then you set to deploy.
Uh, and one of the things that's both exhilarating
and daunting about the military writ large,
but specifically special operations,
is you're a young officer
and all of a sudden you're down ranging
and you now have hundreds of millions of dollars in aircraft
and assets and logistics
and people's lives depending on, you're like, I'm 24.
Yeah. I I'm still trying to figure out my, like,
I, I don't know anything at this point.
But what it does is the assumption is, hey,
if I've screened these people right, the right character,
the right intellect, the right physical abilities,
they'll rise to the occasion.
And, and nine times outta 10 they do.
And so I remember being in charge of, um,
an essentially entire special operations unit in
nor northern half of Iraq.
And so President Obama at the time, this is late 2011.
Do we stay? Do we go, do we stay? Do we go?
And there was a lot of back and forth
negotiation with the Prime prime Minister.
And I remember thinking, holy smokes,
how is it that I'm in charge of potentially drawing down?
And so it came down to the bitter end
and we were essentially starting the draw down.
So we were the last unit up in northern Iraq. Wow.
'cause everything had to work its way down to, to make it
to Kuwait to be shipped home at the time.
And I remember being kind of alone and, and unafraid,
although I was afraid, you know, in this little out station
we start to take more rockets and there starts to be more
and more pressure because all the security has gone
down in that area at the time.
And pretty soon you're like, all right.
And so I'm driving home up into an aircraft
taking off and, and leaving.
And the experience was really powerful for me
because, um, it highlighted how much,
how much teamwork matters,
even if you feel like you're alone
and afraid and don't know what you're doing.
And also how much training
and coordination can pay their dividends under fire.
And so one of, one of the phrases
that I picked up along the way that I swear by to this day,
and it kind of gets into the construction side later on,
is an amateur trains until they get it Right.
A professional trains until they can't get it wrong.
So this concept around training
and disciplining your system, your business, your body,
your whatever, so
that it just runs on autopilot when quote unquote bullet
start flying, was a hugely formative experience for me,
especially as I got into parenting
and business starting and et cetera.
So let's take a quick break from the military, uh,
to talk about the family side, Uhhuh.
'cause this is all happening at the same time.
Like you said, you're married,
you married your childhood sweetheart.
Mm-hmm. You guys were birthed
by the same doctor, right? Yes.
It sounds it, it sounds weirder when you say it like that,
but I promise it's all above board.
Well, it's, it's, it's fascinating to me
because your parents
and your wife's parents were friends Yeah. As
Well. Oh, they went to college together. Yeah.
So They're all buddies and friends. Oh yeah. She, she
Was the youngest daughter of our best.
They're our best family friends.
So like, we grew up semi inseparable. Yeah.
And until you're like 16, 17,
like the gender doesn't matter.
It's, it's my sister's friend.
It's like, it's just part of the pack.
And then obviously like you become a young man, you're like,
oh, I really like you.
She's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, what's interesting is, 'cause like I'm a father
and, you know, I've got my daughter who's now 11,
going on 18, and my son is three years old, Uhhuh.
And we have friends and they have like a little girl,
or you know, there's a little boy
around my daughter, whatever.
And they go, oh, it'd be funny if
they grew up and got married.
Never really thinking that they were ever, ever do that.
But you did that. Oh
Yeah. And part of me half thinks like there was machinations
by both mothers along the way of like,
and you know, your kids too.
So it wasn't, it's not just arbitrary pairing,
but like, we happened
to be highly complimentary in skills and personality.
Yeah. And so I remember when I went
and first asked, uh, her mom
and dad permission to date her the first time,
I remember them laughing at me and I was like, oh,
because these are like basically my godparents.
Yeah. And I was, and they're laughing at me.
I was like, oh, great. This really didn't know.
And they explained, they're like, we're laughing
because this is the right relationship, wrong time, time.
Like, we see you guys are like a couple years too early.
Yeah. And so you're probably
gonna have some bumps and bruises.
And we did. But the, the point was like, as a parent,
you can see, you can see good opportunities for your kids,
even if the timing is wrong.
Yeah. And they stuck by her
and stuck by me as you kind of weather the storm
of figuring it out.
And then, you know, here we are, 15 years married,
three kids deep and it was the best decision I've ever
Made. So it's incredible.
So you guys get married, uh, you,
you joined the military, you're in the military,
you move to San Diego.
Yes. Right? Yep. And then
what year did you have your first child?
So this, this starts the, the journey of,
uh, of military life.
So, uh, come back from Iraq,
commanding officer at the time said, Hey, you,
you like foreign languages.
You, you have a more global perspective than most you should
consider applying for this thing called
the Olmstead Scholarship.
And I was like, sir, I just wanna jump
outta planes since you bad guys.
And he is like, no, no, no, really, like,
you gotta do a diversity tour anyway.
Like, you should go consider this. So I put in an
application, got selected, they essentially you rack
and stack and they, they eventually
choose a country and a language for you.
And so for us, um, we really wanted to,
and they selected us to go study in, in Israel.
So you spend a year studying a language to fluency?
Definitely not fluent.
Uh, so we went up to Monterey at the
Defense Language Institute to study Hebrew.
Okay. And then my wife and I, uh, then move into country.
Well, surprise wasn't supposed to be this way.
Conceived our first right.
Before we're about to go and have this awesome like young
married couple adventure Yeah.
Travel all around the world. We're like, oh, damn it.
This is not what the, what the plan was supposed
to look like, what the playbook was supposed to look like.
So as you know, as a parent, you look back on it
and go, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Right. But at the time you're like, the loss of my freedom,
the loss of my independence, my, my dreams.
So my, my now oldest, also 11-year-old girl, uh,
ended up being born, uh, in, in Israel at the time.
So while we were mid two year cycle, uh,
we were there for a couple years.
The back half the war kicked off.
And so, ah, she,
my wife ended up coming home a little bit early.
Uh, highly formative experience, young couple raising a kid,
had some health challenges fresh out the gate in a foreign
country, taking rockets overhead.
Like it was, it was a spicy insane, a spicy adventure,
but forced us really close to one another.
Yeah. And to our daughter.
And again, tough, but I wouldn't have it any other way now.
So she, she was born overseas.
She was born overseas. Okay. Uh, yeah.
Uh, to a, to a Russian midwife.
And then the staff spoke Hebrew.
I'm kind of disoriented trying to take care of my wife.
My Hebrews, especially in the medical
field, is not great at the time.
It was, it was, it was a, uh, unique challenge.
And I, the reason I bring up the unique challenge is
because people ask, you know, Hey,
what was the greatest part about
buds and all that kinda stuff.
And it was the
camaraderie, the brotherhood, all that kinda stuff.
But the single greatest part about that chapter
was it resets your calibration for everything to come.
Yeah. Bud s is not the hardest thing I ever have been
through or ever will go through.
Like, I'm gonna deal with, uh, a sick parent, the loss
of a loved one, whatever.
In this case, it was a really sick kid in a foreign country
that was more challenging than trying to make it
through buds because I couldn't quit. Yeah.
And so That recalibration was the, the,
the greatest part about the,
the Buds experience. Yeah. And I paid
Dividends. And, you know, again,
as we get further into your story, uh,
on part two, which I can't believe this,
we're already over 35 minutes into this conversation.
Oh My gosh. The time flies.
But I mean, again, that is why this has
to be at least two parts, ladies and gentlemen.
Tell I'm listening to this. Speed it up because No, I'm not.
I'm just saying that we, we just blew through 35 minutes
and we're not even done to the point where I wanted
to be done at the end of part one.
So, um,
but you know, some of the themes,
like you talked about teamwork.
Mm-hmm. You like being part of highly functioning teams.
Yep. Uh, endurance, getting through it, whatever it is,
and not quitting finding ways to do it.
I mean, it's just, it's fantastic.
And it all is gonna culminate
in part two of what we talk about.
We're not quite there yet though,
because, uh, first of all, the, the Olmsted scholarship,
the, so you, you ended up what
with a master's outta Tel Aviv?
Yeah. So I chose, um, I kind of am a nerd at heart.
So I chose cybersecurity.
I thought Israel was a really unique place to study
the security and diplomacy component
with the technology underlayment.
Yeah. 'cause Israel's got a lot of advanced, um,
technology development.
But the ki the kicker
to the program is you gotta study it in Hebrew, which was
way harder than I thought it was gonna be.
Yeah. I was naive and thinking, oh, I have foreign language.
No big deal. Well, Hebrew is tough.
Well, but I get to your point.
I mean, whether you're fluent or not, you say you're not,
but I'm sure you got some Italian in there
from, from living overseas.
Yep. Obviously English, you, you have,
you have mastered the English language based on every time
I've talked to you, I'm like, Ooh,
that's a new phrase I've never heard before.
I'm gonna write that one down. And then I, I,
I told this story off air,
but, um, one of the, one of the phrases that you said,
and it'll come up in part two, is, uh, something
to the effect of trying to boil the ocean.
Yep. And I love
that phrase 'cause it means you're doing too much.
Right. But, uh, I tried to use that and sound smart
after talking to you and I said, yeah, you just,
you can't boil the water and evident in the room.
When I said that looked at me like, yeah,
you can, it's pretty easy.
Throw the gas and water heats up. It takes about
Five minutes, Sam, it's not that hard.
I'm like, man, where's Garrett?
Where's Garrett when you need him? Um, okay.
So we talked a little bit about the family life. Yep.
Uh, you're down in San Diego at some point,
if I remember correctly, you buy some property,
Right? Yeah. So actually we were
in Israel at the time. Okay.
Single income family. We love this place called Coronado.
Uh, and we're like, man, one single,
single salary, Navy salary.
Is there any way we can afford this babe?
So we're kind of, you know, Redfin and Zillow at the time.
And we see the cheapest house.
It's, it's, it is a tear down.
It's a little old 1950s house, but we're like, I don't care.
Location, location, location. Like
that's a place we could raise kids at.
So we bought it from overseas. We never looked at it.
We're just like, you know what, we'll figure
out the rest of the sight unseen.
Sight unseen. Wow. The assumption was like, neither
of us are super like high maintenance folks.
Okay. So it's got termites or it's got rot or mold
or we we'll figure it out.
Yeah. So bought it sight unseen
and then we come back from Israel and move in.
We're like, oh actually this isn't that bad.
But when we did that, um, we are, we are blessed
beyond measure and we stumbled better lucky than good.
So we come back and the house actually was missed surveyed
and it had a larger lot that was, was listed.
And I know nothing about construction or real estate,
but I'm like, oh, this is probably a good deal.
And then, oh, there's a landlocked parcel behind it.
In a 19 way trust, they're looking
to dissolve the trust as fast as possible.
They'll give you another lot's worth of land for 200 grand.
And I'm broke as a joke at this time at this point,
but aware enough to call my mom and dad in Arizona.
Go, mom, dad. Is there any way there's
sausage to be made here?
Yeah. Could we figure something out
and you kind of quickly run some specs
and go, holy smokes, Corona's expensive land.
Good deal. Okay. So we ended up, uh,
we turned into accidental developers.
And so my mom and dad sold our,
our childhood house in Arizona.
'cause at this time now, my sister
and brother are also in the Navy in San Diego.
So that's just it too. I would really get to that.
So your, your siblings followed after you. Yes.
And now there's a deep tradition of military service.
Yes. But I go back to, they look at it and go, oh shoot.
If he can do it, they're letting anybody in
Speak. Barrier to entry
is pretty low.
So my sister, uh, came out
and was emergency medicine physician for the Navy.
And then my brothers at this point, um,
now early in his seal journey as well.
And so it was like, okay, sweet.
All three kids are down there. First grandkids are there.
We're tied to people not land. Yeah. Okay, let's sell.
Right. And there was a unique opportunity here.
So why I say this is,
this is the first experience I had with construction.
So bunch of like crazy idea late nights, you know,
drinking beer and coffee with my dad
and wife we're like, okay, we can make this work.
And so the deal we eventually struck with my parents was,
Hey look, we got nothing.
We're raising small kids.
If you are willing to cover the cost to demo the house
and build us a new house,
we'll give you half the land super close to my folks.
Again, they're essentially my wife's godparents. Right.
So it sounds a little weird.
It all Works out. It works for us. Yeah.
Not for everybody. And so you start
to run the math and go, okay, let's do this.
Well quickly run into the buzz
saw of like Southern California.
It's expensive to build. It's expensive.
So out of necessity we go, oh shoot, this doesn't pencil
unless we can get our construction costs down.
And I don't know where I first had the crazy idea.
It's like, well let's just build it off site. That's easy.
You build a house, drop it in, boom, you're done.
We again, we don't need super luxury.
We're pretty low maintenance. Not that easy.
It's, it's not that easy. We're gonna get way into
that in, in part two.
But before we leave part one, a couple of things that, uh,
you have a story Uhhuh that
I have now repeated multiple times.
I, I'm sure I have butchered the story,
but I, I need you to tell the story,
but also right next door to your property Yes.
Is a friend of yours. Yes. Right. College buddy.
Uh, again, sounds weird.
So there was a third family that my wife's family
and I grew up grew up with.
The youngest son of that family is this person. Okay.
So childhood friend grown up together.
Okay. So child. That's right. So childhood friend. Yep.
Grew up together. Happens
to buy the property right next door to you.
Yes. He's also in the military.
He also in the military, we were
at the same seal team at the time.
Okay. So he, that trust that I was telling you
that broke up the lots, they chopped the parcel into three.
And so I called him and I was like, dude,
we don't know anything, but like I'm pretty sure we can run
some specs in Redfin.
And like, this is actually a really good deal. Yeah.
We should try this out. So he bought it
and then we end up kind of sharing like a backyard fence.
Two old houses at the time.
And he decides at the same time that you do roughly. Yep.
He's gonna tear down and build as well. Yes.
But he goes with, he goes
Traditional, traditional like stick frame.
Yeah. Stick, stick frame, site build.
And so this, this starts a journey together
of like three years.
Yeah. So multiple births on both sides are happening.
Multiple deployments over this.
The process takes a really long time.
And what we realized is there's a case study going on.
His was what you'd expect custom. Yep. Single family build.
It's gonna take time, but you got your local builder and,
and he's gonna kind of, you know, walk through the process.
So he, he lives through that pain.
And I lived through the pain
of firing six general contractors.
'cause nobody would return my call.
Just basic decency in etiquette. Right.
Multiple modular factories Ended up having the mods try
to be built up in Idaho.
And we kind of start to stumble in.
We make a bet over a bottle of scotch.
Certainly I'm gonna win because it's an offsite build.
Right. So now fast forward,
I am mid second or third deployment.
The mods are getting dropped.
My wife is, she would say it like a cannonball hitter.
She's like eight and a half pregnant, eight
and a half months pregnant with a kid
that's gonna be 11 pounds anyway.
So like she's she's at her wins pounds. Yes.
So she's got 2.8, 2.9 kids.
And I'm deployed running a
command in the Middle East at the time.
So I'm not even there for the install.
And I'm trying to like remotely project manage
and kind of pseudo be a structural engineer
and owner builder.
And um, the breaking point where this goes from Ha ha.
Funny. Cool. You're doing a residential build to like
WTFI am.
Um, so I'm in the Middle East.
We are in the process of uh,
tracking down a false flag vessel in the Gulf.
You can figure out which country it likely is.
And we're in the process of doing mission planning.
When you do mission planning for a ship take down it's
complex 'cause you're doing it at night.
You got helicopters coming in from the sky,
boats coming in from down below.
Complex timing, lots of safety and logistics. Yeah.
People die all the time doing this really
complex coordination effort.
Lots of detail technology.
And it's evening time at that point.
00:44:11.775 --> 00:44:15.175
And my wife calls and she's like, babe, I can't sleep
'cause you did this to me and your son is like ready
to split me open and it's freaking Tuesday afternoon
and the plumber won't show up.
The mods are dropped, they can't continue
and start laying the floor because they gotta break
through the, the subfloor
and get the plumber to, to make the connections.
Can you help me track the plumber down?
And I was a little tired,
a little stressed picking up on her stress.
But that was the, that was the breaking point part for me
where I was like, damnit.
Yeah. We are a civilized society.
How can we not figure out how to solve this?
This problem is now personal to me.
As soon as this op gets done, like I'm gonna start
to flip the switch and figure out how to solve this problem
because this has gotta change
This. It's incredible
Garrett,
because you, you were talking about, uh, you know,
being overseas on a mission crucial life and death.
Like you talked about all this coordination,
all these teams you're working at night, you have to put all
of this together to make sure this goes right.
Yet your wife calls you from San Diego and says, we got a
Problem. This three inch a
BS is not connecting itself, the plumber
Is not here, and I need you to get a new one.
This is nonsense, this is an emergency.
And it grows in your head of like, why, why is this,
why is this a problem?
Yeah. Right. You're used to highly functional,
really, really good teamwork.
Like just these, these teams that can get stuff done.
Yet here we are in the construction industry
and we're having all of these communication breakdowns
and things that just aren't lining up, so to speak.
And that's the problem that faces you
and that just grows, like you said,
another seed has been planted and it grows in your head.
Yeah. And I think at that
point I fell in love with the problem.
I didn't have a solution. I'm a mechanical engineer
by background, so I have a sense of atoms,
but no construction, no significant structural engineering.
I just fell in love with that problem
and said, that is a pursuit that I can get on board with.
And that ultimately kind of started, started my journey
or my passion project with,
with construction and with solving it.
If you got a problem, he will solve it
as the Great Vanilla Ice once said.
Uh, this is Garrett Moore.
I think we're at the right point of the story right now,
sir, to stop part one.
We've covered so much ground in this episode.
We went through the childhood, we went
through your playing days of football in high school,
college, of course, everything there with Jim Harbaugh
through the Navy Seals, which by the way, I haven't said it
yet, but thank you for everything you did
for this country and for your service.
And I speak on everyone listening to this
and watching this right now.
Just how incredibly, just the gratitude that we all have
for you and people like you doing that day
And day out. I have to interrupt doing
Caveat and say, thank you for paying your harder earned tax dollars
so I could jump outta planes and do the stuff that I love.
The real atta boy or Atta girl goes to the spouses that get stuck
with the bill of raising kids while their husbands pursue
their calling and their passion and their love with,
with their buddies down range.
So thank you. But the service really is at home.
Well, and, and I, that's, that's just covering year six on
that one with regards to if the
Mrs is watching and listening. Oh, it's, it's
True. I have a debt that I'll never burn off.
It'll take me 50 years to,
to pay her back for all that she's done for
Our family. Yeah. Well, and and
thank you to her for everything too.
Yeah. But, uh, I think we're gonna end strong conversations,
part one with the most interesting man in the building
industry, Mr. Garrett Moore, uh, will be back for part two,
and we're gonna get into the problem that he fell in love
with and his passion to solve that problem.
Stay tuned. Another episode coming shortly.