Southwest Flavor Ep. 160 - Ronald D. Kirk & Sarai Solomon

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Ron Arenas** (0:14)
Hey, good morning. Welcome to Southwest Flavor. Happy Thursday to everyone. We have a great show for you today. I think it's episode 160 So yeah, 160 And that voice that you hear, that's Ron Kirk.
He's coming on with me today.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (0:31)
Love being here, Ron. Love being here.

**Ron Arenas** (0:33)
Well, thank you. Thank you. Tell me a little bit about your company.
All right.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (0:38)
Well, Arcadia Landscape was created in 1983 We are the second longest family owned landscape company in Tucson.
My wife and I acquired Arcadia Landscape approximately about six years ago.

**Ron Arenas** (0:49)
Okay.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (0:51)
My son and I, we run it. My wife comes in from time to time. She'll help with office staff when she has time.
My wife, she worked for the Ronald McDonald House, so she doesn't have a lot of time to come into office. But I've been doing landscape probably since I was 17 years old.

**Ron Arenas** (1:09)
Oh, wow.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (1:10)
In the landscape industry, you have to love what you do. You have to love plants and trees and watch things grow.

**Ron Arenas** (1:14)
Sure.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (1:15)
Without us, you don't breathe. It's true. I mean, we have to keep the trees alive. We have to keep the bushes and the shrubs. And on top of that, we're keeping our community clean for the most part.

**Ron Arenas** (1:29)
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely adds as much as you can control.
Yes.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (1:35)
Yes.

**Ron Arenas** (1:35)
There's a lot of places that you can't control.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (1:38)
Yes.

**Ron Arenas** (1:39)
But we won't get into that part. We'll just get into that.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (1:41)
That's another episode. Right.
Yes. But but I love what I do.
My grandfather told me when I was 14 years of age that if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. And it's like I said before, and I'll say it a thousand times. I don't like the politics. You don't either. All businessmen don't like the politics. We don't like to have to discipline an employee. But I mean, other than that, I mean, I love what I do. I wouldn't change nothing.

**Ron Arenas** (2:09)
Good. Very good. So you've had the business for about six years.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (2:14)
That's correct.

**Ron Arenas** (2:14)
Yeah. How many employees do you guys have?

**Ronald D. Kirk** (2:16)
We have close to 40

**Ron Arenas** (2:18)
Oh, okay. All right.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (2:19)
I mean, they come and go. You know, it's like playing the lottery. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I mean, and with us, I mean, we'll go through 100 applicants and people are hiring them and you'll get one good one out of that. And as of right now, we have a great staff right now, great office staff.
You know, if everything is moving forward, to the best of my ability, sometimes, I don't know, like I can't speak for you and your son, but sometimes my son and I, we kind of don't see eye to eye all the time.

**Ron Arenas** (2:49)
Right. And your son works with you.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (2:50)
That is correct. My son is the business developer. His name is Cody Kirk.

**Ron Arenas** (2:53)
Okay.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (2:55)
And he is in charge of the construction of vision. He helps Carlos Venezuela, which is the construction supervisor.

**Ron Arenas** (3:05)
Okay.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (3:05)
And so Carlos has taught my son about everything he could think of. My son now could read blueprints. He knows how to bid jobs. He knows how to talk to customers.
He doesn't get hot under the collar. When somebody yells or screams at him.

**Ron Arenas** (3:21)
Right.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (3:21)
I mean, he's doing a great job. He really is.

**Ron Arenas** (3:23)
Very good. Very good.

**Ronald D. Kirk** (3:25)
Kind of like your son. You know, our goal is to teach our kids to take over the business. And that was one of the reasons why we inquired Arcadia.
Our goal as parents is not to have our kids work as hard as we did. You know, I've scratched in Claude and life to try to get where I'm at. And now I'm very successful.

**Ron Arenas** (3:46)
That's awesome, man. Very good. Now we have some, well, it's monsoon season.