Episode #170: Feeney Talks with Dan Hovey

#BeAGoodFriend and check out episode #170 of #FeeneyTalksWithFriends featuring Dan Hovey.

It was great to talk with my #friend, Dan. 

Dan is the owner of West Hartford Solar. 

We talked about:
H O to V E - Y  (minute 1
Dan has been helping families for years  (minute 2)
Collaborating on a Toy Drive (minute 4)
Eric from Bergenn Financial and Ryan from Ryan’s Softwash (minute 7)
Widow Jane  (minute 10)
Fifth Annual Friends of Feeney Golf Tournament on September 12th (minute 11)
Dan’s inspiration for starting West Hartford Solar (minute 16)
Where does our power come from? (minute 19)
West Hartford Solar expanding outside of Connecticut (minute 22)
Kristen aka The Sticker Girl  (minute 25)
The 3 Ms of going solar: monopoly, money, more sustainable (minute 27)
Dan’s “solar power” pitch (minute 30)
1 in 10 homes in West Hartford use solar power (minute 37)
AI uses a lot of energy (minute 39)
Tattoos or no tattoos? (minute 42)
American Eagle Financial Credit Union, our newest podcast sponsor (minute 43) 
Ryan Gomes is a good neighbor! (minute 48)
Dan’s top three bourbons (minute 50)
"Don’t wait for a special occasion for a bottle, make the bottle the special occasion” - Matt Whitney (minute 54)
Dan ran 3 different marathons inspired by his daughter (minute 56)
Upcoming events (1.01)
Tommy’s Place in Cape Cod (minute 1.02)
Most impactful moment for Friends of Feeney (minute 1.05)
Closing remarks (minute 1.08)

Podcast Sponsors: 
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Parkville Management - www.parkvillemanagement.com
Luna Pizza - www.lunapizzawh.com/lunas-menu
PeoplesBank - www.bankatpeoples.com
Float 41 - www.float41.com
Maximum Beverage - www.maximumbev.com
Sally and Bob’s - www.sallyandbobs.com
Mandell JCC of Greater Hartford - www.mandelljcc.org
American Eagle Financial Credit Union - www.americaneagle.org

Creators and Guests

Host

Eric Feeney

After teaching for nearly a decade at his alma mater in Waterbury, in 2014, Eric Feeney began teaching at Wolcott Elementary in West Hartford. Shortly following, Sam Sohn, the father of one of his students, passed away suddenly from a heart attack. He left behind four beautiful children and a loving wife, Nancy Wallace-Sohn. Eric saw first-hand the toll this took on the family as they navigated their way through this unthinkable tragedy. The following year, Rashad Collier Sr., another father of a student in Eric’s class, passed away in Hartford as a result of gun violence. Rashad left behind two fantastic children and a loving wife, Denise Villegas. The impact of these tragedies weighed on Eric and motivated him to build an organization that could provide assistance for similar situations. With that, Friends of Feeney was born. In 2019, Friends of Feeney Inc. became an official 501©(3) nonprofit organization, allowing more funds to be raised and expanding the range of services provided to children and families in need. Today, over a decade since Eric’s idea to build a community organization dedicated to supporting our friends in need, Friends of Feeney has burgeoned into a reputable and recognized organization capable of providing financial and resource support to numerous families and individuals across greater Hartford and beyond. Through this work, an incredible community of children and families has been recognized, who care for and appreciate each other’s kindness.

Producer

David Chmielewski

David started his video career in the early 1990s working on video crews as an independent contractor for such companies as Martha Stewart Living, IBM and Xerox. After graduating Southern Connecticut State University with the degree in Corporate Communications, David continued his video production career and accepted a position at WFSB in Hartford, CT. Within a few years the news and production studios became his charge and David designed, installed and maintained the televisions sets for the various programs at the station. At the end of 2013 David founded DirectLine Media, a video production company that specializes in creating memorable and compelling video content for businesses.

Editor

Stefania Sassano

Stefania's acting journey began as early as the fourth grade, where she took on the role of Scarlett O'Hara in a stage production of Gone With the Wind. This early experience sparked a lifelong passion for the arts. With a background in musical theater fueled by her love of music and singing, Stefania stepped into larger roles, such as Fraulein Kost in Cabaret during her sophomore year at the University of New Haven. This performance earned her a nomination for the prestigious Irene Ryan Acting Award at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival—an honor she would receive again in her junior year.

What is Feeney Talks With Friends?

Eric Feeney talks with #friends! Eric is the founder of the nonprofit organization Friends of Feeney. Their mission is to help children and families who need assistance after heartbreak and tragedy. www.friendsoffeeney.com

Yeah.

There.

I actually used to use them for embroidery
when I worked at Turnpike Motors out of.

I was 20 years.

So they did
all of our embroidery back then.

And so when I opened the business,

it just kind of made sense
to keep that relationship going.

Cool. Wait.

Should we do in the music?

Let me tell them.

Or should we do the should I do a friend
zone over there in the background?

A check or a sign?

I think

it might not be ready.

How about the sign?

Let me put the sign over here.

I heard that

number one. Yeah.

I love Widow Jane.

I know I got Eric turned on to it.

Eric Bergen

I don't even remember
where I had it first.

I'm not

sure where I had it first,
but I've always.

I've always liked Bourbons
that tastes like they've been aged

in a, like, a wine barrel
or like a rum barrel.

Something that adds a little hard to it.

And maybe some something
that's a little more complex.

And, I love the story of Widow Jane, too.

It was, a wife that hated her husband.

And he owned this land that had

been a mess of the story.

But he he owned the land that had,

like, reservoirs that were pass
or filtered through limestone.

And he wouldn't share it with any of the,
like, any of the community.

And so when he finally died,
the wife, Jane, hated him.

So she gave the land
to the state of New York.

And so now they used that water
in the production of this,

since that's what it was called,
widow Jane.

Kind of an interesting story. Damn.
You should have saved it for the pot.

Are we recording?
Did you get that? Well, we can

we'll we'll do it again.

We'll do it again.

I hope we get the story right.

Probably not in promoting.

Yeah. Yeah, right.

What do I do with my hands?

Don't hit the table. Yeah.

That's
the only thing you gotta do. One rule.

If you if you like, pick up a glass.

Just put it down gently. Got it.

I'll leave it at the table. 172.

Are you ready?

170, 170 episodes. Who does that?

That's crazy.

It's the most ever. I'm kidding.

It's top five.

Top five.

Ready?

Oh ho!

H to the V. Why?

What's up?

That is brilliant. Oh,

I don't think Jay-Z is good.

Is that any risk of you taking over

with Dan Hovey hooves in the house?

That's right.

It's a hard knock life for you.

Not very excited.

This is friends. Afeni.

I usually start, all right, all right,
but we had to start with the.

With the Jay-Z, with the the whole.

Did you get that a lot? No. McConaughey.

Yeah.

Well, I would say, actually, as a kid,

I'm not sure if it's a two syllable thing,
but as a kid, no one called me Dan.

Everyone called me Hovey.

But this predates blueprints
that no one really cared about.

Yeah.

So I think he probably took it from me.

Yeah. Feeny.

Everyone seems to call me Feeny.

Hovey. Feeny.

Some names.

My daughter was called Hovey
through most of the elementary school.

My son is three,
so I think I'll call each other anything.

Hobby? Yeah. So this is friends. Afeni.

My name is Eric Feeny,

founder and president of friends
of Our missions to help children

and families that need assistance

after heartbreaker tragedy
and I use this podcast,

Feeny talks with friends,
and I talk to a wonderful people

in the community
that are doing great things.

And you're in the West Hartford community
doing great things.

And this is episode 170.
How does that feel?

Honestly,
that's amazing that you've done so many.

Yeah, I feel like a lot of podcasts,
you know, they start off strong

and they kind of Peter out
and you definitely kept it going.

Can't believe.

Direct Line Media has been putting up
with me this long.

Thank you Dave.

Thank you Stefania
thank you. Maximum beverage.

You've been in here before? Yes.

Your frequent flier. You got the.

I wouldn't say frequent flier, but I mean,
this place is fantastic, right?

It's huge.

They have great selection, great bourbon.

So definitely in the rotation.

Nice, nice.

So what you've been up to,
you know, a lot of sun

related stuff, you know,

you know, if we can,
I guess, go down this path.

I was I had no idea
what friends of mine was until,

I guess, I don't know, maybe,
maybe a couple of years ago.

And I remember
I was talking to Ryan and Eric Bergen,

and I was so surprised
in what you were doing because

it was so on brand with with things that
me and my wife had been involved

with locally for a couple of years,
not nearly in the official capacity that

you were, but I had a very hard childhood

and lost my mother at a very young age,

and then was a victim
of some physical abuse as a child.

And kids who go through hardship
have always been very near and dear to me.

I know that as I've gone through
difficult things in my life

that support system and people around you
or pull you through it, and I have very,

very close friend, Officer
Jamie De Simone, who's retired now,

but she was with the Newington
Police Department for years,

and when she moved into a public relations
role, me and her

were just chatting about it one day
and she was talking about these kids

that go through incredible hardships,
especially around the holidays.

And she told me the story about a kid

who, specifically one child
that kind of brought us into all of this.

He woke up Thanksgiving morning
and both of his parents

had overdosed a heroin,
and he was eight years old. And.

You know, that is just such a hard thing
to hear.

And, you know, when you're
I have a nine year old now and,

and obviously had been through some,
some trials as a kid.

And when you hear stuff like that,

you just you're compelled
to help in any way that you can.

And I know as an eight year old
you probably wake up.

And what do you do at that point?

Your whole world,
even if they weren't great parents,

they're your whole world and
you don't even know how to separate that.

And so we started a very avant garde,
you know,

bootlegging version of a charity
where we would go around

and find businesses and people to sponsor
children that had gone through trauma.

Specifically around the holidays.

We worked with the Newington
and the West Hartford Police Department

and the detectives specifically,
and they would find families

that they thought would be good fits,

and we would find businesses
and people to sponsor these kids

and by Christmas gifts for them,
as if they were their own children.

And and then I would go around
Christmas Eve in a Santa costume

with the police escort, and we would
deliver presents to these kids.

And it was important for us to
I remember, you know, buying,

you know, 20, 30 gifts for a child
I had never met.

And then importantly, taking my daughter,
who is maybe, you know,

I think she was five
and then six, you know, back then.

And she would help us wrap the gifts.

And it was a great learning opportunity

to talk about,
you know, kids who were going through it.

And so when I heard the voice
you guys were doing, I'm like,

I guess we can stop
and just start working with beanie,

because you guys are obviously
a lot more organized.

And, you know, that organization
certainly helps reach more people.

You know, we were only able to help,

you know, maybe 8 to 10 families
a year in our limited resources.

So I'm really excited
to see where this all goes.

Yeah.

Because it's obviously
very close to my heart.

So I, I applaud you guys.
Thank you so much.

And yeah, thank you for opening up and
sharing that and that you saw

something that needed to be done
and you took action.

So I commend you.

That's awesome.

So so you're going to dress up as Santa.

You're going to deliver
some friends of Fini toys.

This I can't wait.

This is great. I'm really looking forward
to this collaboration.

We've been doing a toy drive.

I think this Christmas
it'll be our seventh year.

Families all over West Hartford.

We collected over 900 toys last year.

Thanks to wonderful people and businesses
that have hosted Luna Pizza.

We always have a party at the end
with pizza DJ caricatures

pizza is definitely the best pizza
in the town you got.

You heard it here
first, Hovey Hovey said so.

Oh, yeah.

Chamber and Dave's great guy.

Yep. Alex is awesome.

Alex I'm sorry. We did.

He wants to come there.

Yeah. Sorry, sorry, sorry, Alex.

I did a piece of review and he was
on the podcast, and I made the pizza.

Did you give it a rookie score or was it.

I think I gave it a 9.9.

Okay, good.

Yeah,
I got to do, you know, decimal points.

You got to say one bite and take like ten.
Yeah. Exactly.

Did all that
talked about the undercarriage.

Yeah. In the flop and the flop.

Oh yeah.

So the thing about Portnoy
that's confusing is that I feel like

everything he says I agree with
and how I like pizza.

My wife is a New York Pizza Slice fan.

I like the New haven of pizza.

When I use that One Bite app, I swear
I disagree

with every review he is pointed me
in the worst possible pizza joints.

I don't know
if you've had this experience.

I like little rendezvous in Meriden.
You try that one yet.

That's on the list.

Fucose on Cheshire fucose I've heard
that's great too.

But sorry. You were
you were talking about partnerships.

Yeah. So, No.

Cut me off any time.

That's great. No. Back to your story.

And that's why
I was very excited to talk with you.

You shared that with
me at an event recently.

No, I love that
that you're willing to give back.

And again, doing it for your children.

That's main reason.

One of the one of the reasons
I do that to to show

that we're giving out there's
more people in the world than yourself. Be

give to others.

You hope it's
you hope it's as impactful as it can be,

that it's a small gesture to a kid
who's lost everything.

So it almost feels like not enough.

Yeah.

But, you know, and maybe,
maybe it's done selfishly on my end

because, you know,
it feels good to help people.

And I just have been there,
and I know what it's like.

But you hope that it has

some positive impact
long term for those kids.

Yeah.

You know, they
they deserve it. Their children right

there, they're innocent
and they need every opportunity.

And you mentioned Eric Bergin
and Ryan McGinnis.

Ryan McGinnis has collected we
I just met him two years ago.

He was giving toys to Children's
Hospital Children's Medical Center.

And they said like,
oh, now we want gift cards.

And he's like, no, no, no,
I don't want to give gift cards.

I want to give toys.

So he reached out
and found friends of Feeny,

and we've been connected ever since. He's
a good friend.

So for every roof he washes or cleans,
he donates a toy.

And then last year,
I think he may have given us like

30 Django's over 100 toys,
maybe more 200 toys.

Super generous, super thoughtful.

Thank you, Eric Bergen.

Oh, no. Thank you. Ryan. Ryan.

They look alike.

Maybe that's true.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

But they both had their separate show.

Then we had a collaboration show
and we were drinking.

It was. Oh, it was great.

I'm both clients of theirs,
and they're both customers of me.

There you go. Yeah. I've done.

I've actually put solar
in two of Eric's houses.

I did it on Ryan's in West Hartford,

and Ryan does my exterior cleaning.

Does a fantastic job.

You can see all over West
Hartford, neighbors and friends.

He's just blown up
every time someone asks about gutter

cleaning or any of that stuff.

Yeah, and Eric
has been our financial advisor for years

and has, to be honest with you,
been more than just a financial advisor,

really been a mentor,

as when I opened my business,
you know, six years ago or 5 or 6 years,

there's a lot of questions
and a lot of mistakes that are made.

And just having someone that understands
your financial situation

to be able to advise you
and someone who owns his own business,

he's been really a strong supporter
and help along our path.

So I love those guys.

They're great people. Cheers to them.

I won't
I won't share our, our meme history.

Cheers.

So then we did some tasting
on the podcast in Bergen's office.

He had a nice selection.

Do you want to share about your selection
today?

Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, cameras over here.

Camera three,
this is Widow Jane, which I love.

Widow Jane, I've always tended

to gravitate towards Bourbons.

That tastes like they've been finished
in a separate barrel.

And I stumbled across Widow Jane.

And I love the story
about the disgruntled widow Jane,

who took over her late husband's property

and then gave it
back to the state of New York.

And now they used that limestone
filtered water.

I like the story behind it.

And I brought this bottle.

This is actually a bottle

you can't buy unless you're
at the distillery in Brooklyn.

So I thought it was fitting

because probably anything else
that I have could be purchased here.

So I thought that this would be kind of a
yeah, it's an exclusive widow Jane.

Decadence. Decadence.

Past podcast guest. Andy.

Coach. Andy.

Erland. Earline. Earline.

Yeah. Loves widow Jane.

So I'm drinking this. Andy.
And you're not.

I try to, like,

not tell a lot of people about it
because it started popping up places.

There's actually a lot of Connecticut bars
now that that have.

I'm like a little nervous.

That's going to become the next plans.

And you're not gonna be able
to get a hold of it.

Where in Brooklyn,

man, I don't know.

Yeah.

I mean, my wife and I think,
you know this, we just ran the,

the New York City Marathon in November.

And so I feel like I've been through
Brooklyn more now than I ever wanted to.

It was near the water.
Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Right over there. Yeah. Right.
Yeah, exactly.

I've been the Brooklyn brewery.

I've been to Peter Luger's. Okay.

That's it.

Is that Brooklyn lager like?

Yeah, yeah, the like the green
with the big cursive B on it. Yes.

Yeah. That's fantastic beer. Yeah.

They're actually moving locations.

Okay, cool.

Oh yeah.

And it's Susie Foundation
that's sponsored last year.

That's a friend of.

He's. Is he Bergen's friend
or Ryan's friend?

Yeah.

Yeah. That's
that's a good golf tournament.

It's over at this community.

Speaking of golf tournaments,

September 12th, the Friends of Feeny fifth
annual golf tournament.

Do golf. Okay.

Do you sponsor?

Do you golf? Do volunteer?
I do both, sort of.

I mean,
I sponsor better than I golf, okay?

I've been playing golf
for about 15 years, and

there is no way to identify that unless
I just told you that at all for 15 years.

It's one of those things
that I've always had success in sports,

and done well in soccer, in college and

and call for me.

And I am so bad
and it's so frustrating that and bowling.

I just want to be better at it.

And but yeah,
I may or may not be able to play in it,

but certainly can contribute.

My daughter's birthday is either going
to be the weekend there or weekend after.

Gotcha.

As much as I love friends with me,
my daughter will always be family first.

Family first.

No. You've always been
extremely thoughtful and generous.

I want to thank you for your donation.

It truly means the world
for our nonprofit.

So thank you. Yeah. Long overdue.

I've been I've been spending money

in things like this, but just never didn't
even realize that there was a charity

so in line or had so much alignment
with what I really wanted to do.

Actually had a conversation
with my wife two years ago about thinking

about closing my business because I felt
so compelled to be in the charity world.

And I didn't do that.

And,
and then it was like, just, you know,

how life works just through, through
passing and conversation.

It's like, oh, I don't need to do this.

If I, if I started a charity,
it would be can be

competing against friends
and join our team.

Come on.

We could use some directors
or you want to be a volunteer.

You want to be, Oh, what's it called?

So, director, when you could direct,
when you want advisor,

whatever you want to do,
we'll make up a role for you.

You want to be the secretary treasurer?

What do you want? What do you want to do?

I just want to help.

Especially be help directly
with the people as much as I can.

But yeah, we definitely need to find.

So in our umbrella of heartbreak
or tragedy, it's loss of a loved one.

Sure.

Severe sickness or illness

and displacement from your home
for like a flood or a fire.

So if you know anyone out there,
we just helped our 151st family

and provided over
$305,000, $300,000 over three.

We had the $300,000 mark.

We're super proud. It's a milestone.

All volunteer community
based organization.

A lot of families
who have found help. Yeah.

And that's obviously the important thing
we've helped, from house fires

to car accidents to surgeries to losses
of loved ones and multiple facets.

So wonderful team.

Matt, Marty, Jen, Ty, Rob, Dante,

Hova, Hovey.

Yeah, we'll definitely incorporate,

the installs that we do
in some type of charitable giving to the.

Yeah. Well,
to figure out what that looks like.

Oh yeah. Bergen's going to do every time
he gets a financial a new person.

Ryan's doing every time he cleans a roof.

You got to do some every time
you install something for solar.

Absolutely.

And speaking of solar, West
Hartford solar. Yes.

Please tell us about that. Where
where did you get the inspiration?

When did it start?

Yeah.

So we we opened up in August of 21.

To be honest, I had worked in a company,
Turnpike Motors

auto Body in Newington and loved my job
there, there for, for 17 years

and had gotten to the point
where I had a young daughter

and I was working 60, 70 hour weeks,
missing dinner with my child.

And, you know, growing up,
I cooked dinner by myself

quite a bit as a kid, and I just didn't
want to be absent from the home.

And you sometimes get to the point
where when you're putting that,

I remember I had a kind of a moment
of realization when it was stressed

out, upset that I couldn't see my family.

And you're working hard
and you realize that not only you walk,

you see the owner of the business
walk out and you're like, I'm still here.

What am I doing?

You know, like, you know, I've always been
very loyal and hard working,

and you just have these moments
where you're like, I'm building something.

I'm really contributing
to building someone else's dream

at the expense of my family
and my relationships.

And so my wife, who
if anyone's ever heard me

talk about my wife,
I'm just so impressed with her

and so thankful
that she wanted to build a life with me.

But she owns a business.

She owns an allergy practice, allergy
and asthma family care,

right on Farmington Avenue,
right down the street. And

I was watching,

you know, she said something
really compelling to me once.

She is not open on Fridays.

And I said to her,
as kind of being a workaholic,

could you make more money
if you were open on Fridays?

She said, well, absolutely.

I said, well,
why don't you open on Fridays?

She's like, because I don't want to.

I value my time and blew my mind
something so simple.

Yeah, I'm so jealous.

And I was like, I need to like,
do something in my life that's different.

And so I wanted to own a business.

And I have an engineering background

and looking at industries that I thought
were smart ones to get into,

and also problems
that exist in this state.

Energy is a massive one.

People don't understand the energy crisis

that we live in in Connecticut
and then also Massachusetts.

We operate in both states only.

So last year, only 30% of the energy
that hits the outlets

or that runs the lights in here
or the podcast equipment, only 30% of

that is generated in state
from our nuclear power plant.

Millstone.

That power plant is decades old.

One of the three reactors
is decommissioned already,

and then the other two are set
to be decommissioned in the short future.

The rest of our power
comes from out of state,

sometimes as far as upstate New York, and
in some cases down actually in Louisiana.

And it's all natural gas that's burned
don't make primarily natural gas

generation.

And then they ship that power,
you know, 400 miles,

700 miles to get to your service panel
to run your house.

So when you look at your Eversource bill,

you usually see a pretty hefty
supply section.

And then you have
these massive delivery charges.

And the reason why our delivery charges
are so expensive, it's

no different than what's happening
when you get you ever do Uber Eats

or Dash, where you get a $10 sandwich

and it costs $40,
our energy is the same problem, right?

We have the kind of an expensive supply,
but it's being delivered

over a very large, large area.
And that infrastructure

is some of the oldest infrastructure
in the entire country.

Obviously, Connecticut's old.

And so our grid here is very, very,
very old.

We run into a very high percentage
of transformer upgrades when we have to do

solar because it's too old to be
compatible with modern day electricity.

And so when I was trying

to find a new industry, I thought that
that's probably a good place to start to.

Big problem.

It's interesting to me, and we're kind of
at the front edge of the industry.

I want to build an I don't want to build
a business in an industry that's old.

And so I got into solar,
and when I first cut my teeth,

I worked as a salesperson
in a national solar company

and learned a lot
about how he didn't want to do it.

There was a lot of problems
with the solar as an industry.

There's a lot of deceptive practices,
fraud.

A lot of people have had that experiences
because they got, you know, a sales

rep that took advantage of them
or didn't explain something correctly.

And legislature can only catch up so fast
to keep people safe.

And I also saw
another really interesting thing where

the really

high quality consultants
that took their time to explain things

they didn't deal in contract
fraud, you know, pretty standard stuff.

You think they actually didn't excel

at those companies
because their volume was too low.

And I'd actually watched guys that were
incredibly gifted with their people.

They treated their customers
fairly, seeing them get fired

because they didn't
have a high enough volume of those people.

And to me, that never makes any sense.

I came from the collision repair industry.

We were quality over quantity
because of safety.

It was all about when you got a car
that came into your shop that had,

you know, blind spot monitoring sensors
and, you know, all sorts of sensors

all over the vehicle, you have to be very
careful about how to repair those cars.

And that's

one thing that Doug does at Turnpike
that's, you know, he specifically targets

personality types of risk, adverse people
that can fix cars safely, not fast.

And I was watching those same

personalities and soul or lose their jobs
because they weren't fast enough.

And and so I started my own company
and brought all those people

that had been fired at. Right.

And and it's okay for us
because we're not publicly traded.

Volume is great for building a business,
but we don't need it to stay in business.

So we can focus on the very nuanced market
of West Hartford.

We have a lot of interesting homes
here, a lot of trees,

particular customers
that have high expectations for esthetics.

And so being small and agile
and focusing on quality,

we fit really, really,
really well in this market.

And West Hartford, you know, that
neighbors and friends group,

which is fantastic.

And we're a part of
a lot of town Facebook pages.

Most of them are awful.

It's just people arguing
about politics on the federal level,

not even like local politics.

West Hartford is a super helpful
page, people.

You know, I'm looking.

I'm really hungry for ramen tonight.
Where should I go?

And there's
a lot of great recommendations,

but our community is really been very kind
to us.

And I listen in all matters to us.

My kids go to school in West Hartford.

We live in West Hartford,

great teachers in West Hartford,
great teachers in West Hartford.

Yeah,
I mean, Webster Hill Elementary School

completely changed my daughter
when she started going there.

A completely helped her in a million
different ways and made education,

education something that she hated to
something that she really loved.

So big fan and my son's over at Schecter
and they're fantastic as well.

So yeah, we West
Hartford was certainly the target market.

And then it started growing and growing.

And now we're in Massachusetts as well,

potentially
expanding into meeting next. Wow.

I mean, is,
has been has actually had the highest rate

increases over the last three years
at any one in the country.

They don't have a lot of options either.

Will you keep West Hartford Solar
as you branch out?

Yeah,
we're West Hartford Solar in all states.

I you know, we were worried about that.

My, my

marketing agency figure,

Rob Madrid was a good friend of Erickson
mine and even from Ryan's,

he kind of talked about it and said, does
it make sense to still be this elsewhere?

And we kind of workshopped it
like the Hartford Insurance is sold

nationwide, right? Oh good point.

And if you live in Connecticut,
West Hartford is always going to carry

some level of quality sound, right? Yeah.

If we're good enough for West Hartford,

we're likely good enough
for some other fill in the blank town.

I won't name town specifically.

I don't want to like any listeners.

Waterbury. Exactly.

Yeah.
Only the worst people come from their

you and rankings.

We love Ryan.

Ryan's my next door neighbor,

and he helps
my wife and I get stuff off the shelf.

And I remember

when I was talking to the girl
who designed her logo.

Yeah, very cool logo.

Yeah, it was so it's funny.

When she designed it, I didn't even know
what her first name was.

We used her for.

We did a lot of the.

We actually did 90% of the first
or the safety

apparatuses in New England,
fire trucks, police cars.

We did a lot of that stuff.

And so a lot of times
when you get a police car in

that gets into an accident, the decals
that they have on the side, it's difficult

to just do the door decal
if you don't have the original file.

So we we worked with a company
that was very good at replicating them.

And then, you know, having us
and then having us just do one panel.

And so we always called her Sticker Girl,
and I didn't know what her real name was.

It is Kristin. She's great.

So I was talking to her.
I said, hey, can you make a logo for me?

And we were dancing around

green planets and solar panels
and all that stuff, right?

And I was like, everybody does that.

Can I just put my dog on there?

And she's like, you can do
whatever you want, Dan, that's your dog.

It's Annie. Yeah, this is Annie.

We lost her two years ago to just a heart
failure, which was hard, but I am.

I'm proud to be able to wear her.

Yeah.

On my on my heart of redouble my chest every day, I guess, depending on the shirt.

But. Yeah.

And he walks with us every day.
Super cool.

Kind of built our.

We used dog themes for internal sales
stuff like different

tier levels are, you know, pack leader
and different things.

We kind of themed it, not like the poodle,
the wild or the pit bull.

No, no, no,
because you can't offend people.

But yeah, it's it's worked out fine.

We've actually gotten several, insults.

I don't think people should choose us
for this reason,

but we've had a lot of people are like,

honestly, you chose it
because you had a dog in your logo.

I'm like, probably not the best metric
for choosing a product.

Whatever. It works for decades.

Whatever works for you, take the business.

Wow. No. Very cool logo.

And then Sunday swagger.

Very cool shirt. And then Annie.

Oh yeah, her
full name was Lady Anne of Marlboro.

And then you have an awesome.

Come on, I'm a teacher. Show and tell.

This is a cool business card.

Probably
not gonna be able to see it on camera.

Can we talk about the business card?

Yeah, that we want to help either. Geez.

Anyway.

Well, I mean, here's the thing, right?

You do a lot of events. How many,

how many, how many business cards
have you gotten out of them?

So many. Many.

And this is the only one I kept.

Yeah, it's unique enough. It's clear.

It's actually very hard to read
as a business card, but it's memorable.

So I give that one out.

Is it,

now when you do solar is

you're like whole life about saving.

And now are you also like a recycler?

Are you, are you, conserving?

Do you reuse, do you recycle?

Do you reduce? Yeah.

I'd love to tell you that.

I'm, like, the greenest guy ever.

My wife turns lights on off
behind me in house.

She had to explain to me which things
go in the blue bin versus the green band.

Okay, you get into my question.

So yeah, that probably answers
the question, right.

We say that people go solar
for one of the three M's, okay.

One of them is they're sick
of the monopoly of Eversource.

One of them is they go for money.

And then the third one,

this is kind of like a shoehorn,
but it's more sustainable.

And sometimes people go solar
for a combination of the three.

Certainly economically

in Connecticut, in Massachusetts,
it almost always pencils out.

As long as you have a house that doesn't

need a lot of so money,
more sustainability and monopoly.

That's right.

Because you don't have any choice
besides Eversource.

Oh, what a scam, right?

You know, they they deregulated it
so that we could pick our own supplier.

But that's only 30% of your bill. Yeah.

And, you know, people just want to have
control over their energy costs.

We do really well
in communities on fixed income because

when if you say go
solar with a lease product,

you know exactly what your energy expenses
every single month.

And so if you're on fixed
income like Social Security,

those are a much stronger products
because you don't have to worry about

when I have a $700 bill in July,
even if it's cheaper in the winter.

We've
we've added a lot of financial products

over the years
to where we can generally sit down

with somebody and find the product
that makes the most sense,

whether it's owning it outright,
whether it's purchasing it through a lock.

We partner

with a local bank, NBT Bank in West
Hartford, to do all of our financing.

I like to deal with local companies
when they can.

We have prepaid lease options,
which allow customers

to semi take advantage of the 48
tax credit that still exists,

even though the other one was sunset
last year.

We have leases and we have roof leases
for people that don't use a lot of energy,

but have a lot of roof space
and want to just get paid

for the power that the system generates
and still just pay their Eversource bill.

So we've tried to get
as many different products

so that when we go to a home,
we can really not just sell them

the products that we have,

but actually have several products
that may or may not make sense

and also tell people when they shouldn't
go solar, because that does happen too.

There are a lot of homes I've been into
where I said this isn't the right call.

You know, your roof is five years away
from being needing replacement.

You're saying you're
only going to live here five more years?

Just wait. Okay. Next homeowner do it.

It's not going to make sense
for you to do. All right.

Can you sell me
some solar panels right now?

Let's hear your pitch.

Let's hear your pitch.

Pitch.

Well, I hope that some of what I've talked
to is a bit of the pitch already.

Yeah.
So I like the money part. Sure. Yeah.

I mean, I think the best way to put it,
I've already got my house GPS mapped.

Okay.

I'm a good candidate.

My neighbor may have it.

So I mean, here's I think
probably the most compelling reason

you're going to use electricity
in your house.

Yep. Right.

You can't help
that. You're going to have to do it.

And if you're using 10,000 kilowatt
hours of energy every single year,

why pay more for it?

Right?

So you automatically it lowers it. Yeah.

But isn't there certain
ways like you could own the solar panels

and pay them back,
or you could lease the solar panels

and pay a little bit each month? Yeah.

So I think the best way to explain it is
this there's really two ways to go solar.

So two ways to go solar.
Not black on the mic.

There's two ways to go.

Solar.

One is where you own it
and one is where you don't.

Yeah.

Now there's several

different variations of those two
kind of primary fundamental ways.

Obviously ownership makes the most sense
logically.

All right.

I pay $8,000 a year in bills.

And if I buy a solar system
that cost me $20,000,

then after two, three, three years,
I am cash flow positive.

That makes sense to people.

There's some return on investment
until you can finance those

where maybe the system that now produces
all of my energy.

I was paying $300 to Eversource
every single month.

Well, now I'm paying

$200 a month in a loan payment,
so I'm paying $100 less a month.

I no longer have an ever source bill,
and at some point

I'll own that system outright
and have nothing to pay.

So that's one option.

The other option is called,
It's sometimes called a PPA or lease.

A really interchangeable.

In Connecticut,
PPA stands for Power Purchase agreement.

Really modern day
people are a level I'd pay.

None of that actually matters. But

the best way to explain how

a lease works is not a car
like how I lease a car.

A lease is actually what you have
with Eversource right now.

So with Eversource, they have power,
they have power plants,

and they have infrastructure in a grid.

They generate power.

They deliver the power to your home.

You pay for that power on a contract.

That contract says
that you're going to pay

29.2 cents
every time that meter spins around once,

and they can change the cost
of your electricity four times a year.

That's the agreement.
It's not a great agreement.

You would never do a mortgage that way,
where you sign up for a 25 year mortgage

and have a variable, and they can change
it anytime they want more times a year.

Right. But that's interesting.

Okay.

We're allowed to in Connecticut
to have the same exact agreement

with a solar provider
instead of Eversource.

So the way that works is identical
in a solar lease.

You don't own the power plant,
just like Eversource.

In this case, the power plant is in a gas
power plant 400 miles away.

It's PV
solar panels on top of your roof, right?

That's the power plant.

You don't own it.

Just like you
don't own the Eversource plant.

The infrastructure,
the power lines in the street.

You don't own those either.

In this case, it's not power lines
in the street, it's conduit or copper

going from the panels down to the service
panel, the breaker panel.

Right.

So your fuel is the sun is free.

The equipment has some type of cost,
but not to you because you don't own it.

And the infrastructure is only

it's only being delivered ten feet,
not 400 miles, which is why it's cheaper.

Right?

So you go into the same type of agreement,

you pay a certain price per kilowatt hour.

So if you're paying $0.29 with Eversource,
maybe you're paying $0.20 or $0.19

with a solar provider.

And that amount can either
never change for 25 years,

or you can choose an escalator
where it goes up 1.9% 2.9% annually.

And there'd be a more extensive
explanation of why you might choose

one that escalates.

They start lower.

So based on your timetable,
might make more sense

to pick one that does,
then it does actually escalate.

But it's the same relationship.

You have a contract
that you pay for power.

Except this one can't change four times
a year.

In many regards, it can't change at all.

For 25 years you lock in a price
and if you could have locked

in your field prices in 2001,
would you have done it?

Yeah of course. Right.

Because gas was a lot cheaper in 2001.

Now it's 2026 and $1,000
a gallon or whatever it is.

I drive an electric vehicle so
I can only do it because of gases, right?

But it's expensive
from what I hear on the news.

But if you can lock in energy costs
at any point, it makes sense.

In this case,
you're locking in energy costs

maybe 40% less
than what you're paying Eversource today.

And Eversource has gone up 4.92%
every single year since the year 2000.

So now, in fact, in the year 2000,
we were spending a little over $0.10 per

kilowatt hour for delivery and supply
combined, and it's up to $0.30 now.

So it's gone up 200% in 25 years.

So that means if this continues
to go at the same rate,

which it'll probably accelerate
because of AI data centers,

if it continues to climb, at that
rate, we'll be spending a dollar

a kilowatt hour.

Most homes use 10,000 kilowatt hours
a year, which means

$10,000 worth of energy
expense a year on an average one.

Geez.

Which is?

It's common.

Data centers are going to be
a big problem.

We'll see how they end up handling it.

But our biggest problem and why our our

our energy is expensive
is because we have very limited supply.

We have massively high demand
and every year our supply decreases

a little bit.

Millstone gets a little bit older
and more people buy EVs,

more people put heat pumps
in and our demand dramatically increases.

And and in any economic triangle,

when supply is low, demand increases.

Price always goes up.

All right, sign me up.

Sign me up.

Right over by Willkie Park.

I love that park.

Yes. Great park.

Main reason I moved in. Yeah.

We're family.

Okay. We're the other side of the tracks.

Took me 25 minutes to get here.

Yeah. Of course.

Whenever we get a house in West Hartford
that makes an appointment for someone to

come see them, I'm like,

it's either going to be two minutes
or it's going to be half an hour.

There's no way to know.

Oh, yeah.

Speaking of West Hartford, how many?

There are 23 single family homes
available for sale.

I had a real estate agent
on our last podcast.

Rob O'Meara Shout out 166.

How many homes do you have?

A percentage on how many you sold her
and how many don't you do?

Okay, yeah.

So Connecticut is one of the country's
leaders.

So now 1 in 10 homes in Connecticut
has solar panels.

One. One out of ten.

One out of ten, which is a massive number.

I don't actually know if by percentage

there's a state with more California,
obviously by volume has more solar.

Massachusetts,
same thing, texts, the same thing.

I don't know
if a percentage of homes it's as high.

Connecticut solar

has been booming,
but Eversource prices have been booming.

And there's a direct correlation between,
solar volume and energy prices.

In fact, it's slow for us right now
for as a comparison, throughout the year,

the bumper months tend to be slower for us

because the heat's not on right now
and your air conditioning is not on.

So you have your cheapest Eversource
bills of the year currently.

Why is it a bumper month?

What's a bumper in between
winter and spring?

Summer?

Gotcha is crazy
when people get their 1st June bill.

Oh, it's
you running its central air all day long.

Yeah, we can't keep up.

But right now, people's bills are cheap.

They have other things that are worrying
about.

Is Eversource starting to take notice?

And are they changing the way that they're

doing business because of the competition,
or are they still running

full speed ahead?

Third way to be a massive Eversource
hater, I really would.

My customers hate them, right?

I not

I have no way to know
if there's corruption or all these things.

There's a lot of things that get thrown
around.

Eversource has a real problem that they,
I think, do their best to try to solve.

People don't understand
when you don't produce

a lot of energy as a state,

and you have to import all that power
from out of state Louisiana.

Yeah. I mean,
what do they expect our energy to be?

And Eversource
doesn't have control over that.

The supply rate that they charge us
is a pass through.

They make zero profit on it.

And so when they make up, you know,

there was a lot of complaints last year
about the combined public benefits charge.

And while true there were some charges
during Covid, there was a lot of people

that lost their jobs and they were unable
to pay their Eversource bill,

and they made a temporary order
to allow people to defer that payment.

Not wipe it out, but defer it.

And anytime you have a payment
deferral, it's not it doesn't ever

work, right, because you just get more
and more and more behind.

And so a lot of these people
that were in deferment became delinquent.

And Eversource margins are not bad enough
to where they can just adopt

all this delinquency or nonpayment,

especially since the government
forced them to not accept money.

So they are it's
this kind of like problem window

where we have lots of delinquency,
where people can't afford

their really expensive bills,
so they go into delinquency.

And in order to cover those expenses,
Eversource has to raise the ratepayer.

The rate the people who are paying
the bill has to raise their money,

because we need a grid
that functions and works.

It costs a lot of money
to keep this thing going,

and they're hoping that people are paying
for that energy that they're using.

But as they do that
and they increase the rate

for the ratepayers that are paying,
obviously you get a whole new percentage

of ratepayers
that can no longer afford the bill.

Right. Gotcha.

Now you have to raise the rates again

to their paying ratepayers,
and now you have a new percentage

of people
that can no longer afford the bill.

And where does it end? Right.

And as we bring on, you know AI is here.

It's not going away.

We've opened that Pandora's box
however people feel about it.

I heard that uses a lot of energy.

It uses a tremendous water.

It uses a lot of water,
use a lot of energy.

But just running these processing units
to just to ChatGPT something.

Yeah, absolutely.

There's always those jokes online,
like Google an AI image.

They're like, oh, there's 70
gallons of water or whatever it is.

Yeah, but there's a lot of energy
that's used in AI.

And we have a huge bottleneck of power
in this country.

And listen, obviously I love green energy.

I'm actually a big supporter
of all types of energy.

We should be using loyal.

We should be using gas.
We should be using nuclear.

We should be using wind maybe.

But using wind where it makes sense.

Texas is really successful with wind.

In fact, they have so much wind
produced overnight in sections of Texas

that you get free energy
between the times of, I think 10 p.m.

and 7 a.m., all your energy is free.

So I have a friend
who owns a solar company down there.

They barely even do solar.

Now they just install batteries.

They have the batteries
turn on at 10 p.m., get completely

charged, charge, and then they run
off the battery for free during the day.

So that works well there.

It doesn't work everywhere, right?

But we have a massive energy bottleneck
in this country,

and I think we need to be supplementing it
in many forms.

There's no perfect answer. Solar's
not perfect, right?

The moon comes out.

I haven't developed lunar panels yet.

Yeah, winter.

What about winter? Winter.
We have reduced.

In fact, that's a good point.

So the way that we get around winter,
where we have

obviously a lot less production, is we
size systems that will overproduce

so much in the summer that you're using
stored credits to pay for the winter.

See, that's a good point
because we don't get enough,

you know, we don't get enough
sun in the winter to help.

Do you pray to the sun
every morning or. No.

Yeah.

There's you know,
there's that yoga pose, I think right.

Then we have you have a son tattoo.

No, no, listen, I have no tattoo.

Cheers to that. Me either.

Okay, so you might be.

Everyone's got.

Right.

My wife and I are tattooist.

I've always wanted tattoos. Me too.

I wanted, like, I wanted to get
a memorial tattoo for my mother.

I wanted to get, like, an old

Americana tattoo.

The mom with the heart.

I just think it's Americana. It's cool,
you know?

Get the whole thing.

Put my mom's favorite flower
and bird on there or something.

Yeah, I've been thinking about it.

Got a design for years, has never done it,
and now being

tattooist makes me unique and cool
exactly as everyone has it.

I'm telling you, everyone
and multiple like the belly button ring.

But then that just
became sleeves neck tattoo.

Very cool.

Let me thank some sponsors.
We're here at Maximum beverage.

Thank you.

Maximum beverage.

Thank you Direct Line Media.

Thank you Brooke Gough law group.

Sally and Bob's
Luna Pizza float 41 fix IV,

Keating Agency insurance
people's Bank, the JCC Parkville Market,

and we got a new one
American Eagle Financial Credit Union.

Thank you. Colleen.
And thank you, Jessica.

They're on board.

They're sponsoring for,
I think for or five months mortgage.

My first house, they're amazing.

They put they catapulted friends of Feeney

in the right direction
with their community.

Give back
give back to the community grant.

We were during I think right into Covid
or right before Covid.

We earned it.

And, you know,
they're just wonderful people over there.

So thank you.

American American Eagle
Financial Credit Union

And that's new because AFC
used to be something different. Yes.

And they're walking distance
from my house.

You know friendly people good people.

So thank you.

American Eagle Financial credit Union
and I think it's federal credit union.

Oh boy. No, no. It's financial.

Come on look that up.

Look that up.

They were the other name
when they organized my first time.

And then we got a new one.

Oh, JCC ever go to the JCC? Yes.

So I want to give you a
I want to give you a week pass.

Okay. Check out the JCC.

I don't know if you want to go
sauna after.

I'm going to sauna and shave.

I have a little time for a shave. Great.

We bring my son to the.

Actually,
both our kids to the park there. Oh, yeah.

Jonathan's playground.
Yeah. Amazing place.

Yeah. Jonathan. Stream. Playground.

Yeah.

It's such a. It's such a great playground.

My wife and son are Jewish,
and so my son's at Shechter.

I think I had mentioned,
but yeah, we love to support.

Nice that boat when you first go in
and take a right, it's a rocking boat.

I help fundraise for that boat.
Oh that's cool.

I helped raise money, but that's actually
nothing to do with friends.

Well, it's the best attraction there.

Yeah, see,
I did that. I brought that there.

Now, like, JK is a great place.

I've been swimming, working out.

I've been playing basketball for 17 years
there.

I have a little knee injury, so
I've been swimming and trying to get back.

But great place.

All right.

And then our last one is West
Hartford Lock.

So West Hartford Lock.

Funny that you say that West Hartford
Lock is in West Hartford, right?

Yuri and Eric, episode 40.

So quickly, I talk about it all the time.

When they branch out, they are northeast.

Door security.

Okay. Yeah.

So the West Hartford lock in town,
but when they go out there northeast.

So that's why my question posed.

Would you be changing to like.

Well, it's funny
you say that because we are thinking

about forming a parent company,
but for a slightly different reason.

Getting back to 1 in 10 homes have solar.

So I've done a lot of work
with like different real estate agencies.

And there is a reality in real estate
that's actually true about any sales

type of job, where 20%

of the people in that industry
do 80% of the business.

And that's true about across any sales.

Any mortgage broker will tell you that
that's how they're real citizens.

20% of the real estate agents
do 80% of their sales volume.

That's true in solar. It's
true in pest control.

It's true in every sales industry.

What we find, though, is that

there is on the real estate front,
there's a lot of confusion

about solar, a lot of real estate agents.

They're not experts in solar.

They don't understand the contracts
that they see.

I partner with some real estate agencies

to be their resource
to review contracts of solar contracts.

When someone's buying
or selling the home side,

explain it to the incoming home buyer,

potentially then offers service to them

to service
and maintain that system for them.

But we found that
now that 1 in 10 homes have solar,

there's a big need
for real estate agencies

to get on board with it
and get a better understanding on it.

So we do a lot of trainings

for different real estate agencies,
but we're also going to be getting into

the real estate state
as well as the real estate

part of the business as well
to where we can specialize in the purchase

and selling of homes of people that have
solar homes or that are looking to buy

solar homes, because we're already
well equipped to to help those people.

And we find that there's just a big need
in the real estate industry,

which is a lot of real estate agents
that love this segment.

But we just hear some of the most

uneducated explanations, and I understand
because it's not their industry.

But there are times
where we hear explanations

and we're able to go in and clarify
and like, oh my goodness, okay, now

I get it.

And I'm just it's
just something that our industry needs.

It's something that people who are buying
or selling at homes.

When people from California

come over to Connecticut,
all they want to do is buy a house.

So I've actually worked
with several California

imports, for lack of a better term,
and they buy the house

and they're calling us for solar.

They want solar right away
because they had solar.

They had a battery.

They're just not used to houses
without solar wind to come here.

And they actually would have consulted
their real estate agent

and their real estate
agent told them not to get it.

And like you're crazy.

Why would you not have it?

So there's a need in the market there
that we're going to fill.

So when we do that, we'll have to have
some type of parent name above that.

And that's kind of all in the works.

Working on our brokerage license.
Very cool, very cool.

Could become a holistic approach
to green energy.

We got to talk.

Ryan gomez. Sure.

Whiskey and running.

Yeah. Okay.

Your choice.
Which one are you going to go first?

The biggest item on that list,
Brian Jones.

Man. So when Ryan moved
in across the street from us.

What's happening? Nothing. When. Ryan.

Ryan, what's going
on? Moved in. Squirrel.

When Ryan Gomez moves in across
the street is funny.

He was,

playing catch with his daughter,
and Ryan stands out, six foot eight.

You know, I look over, I'm like,
oh my goodness.

Being a huge Celtics fan, I'm like,
that's right.

Yeah. And I was of course very excited.

My father was very excited
that Ryan Gomez had moved in.

And it was great
because our daughter was became fast

friends there roughly the same age.

His daughter is about a foot
and a half taller than my daughter.

Yeah.

And I told his daughter
that she's no longer allowed

to stand next to me because she's now
taller than me and she's ten,

which, you know, I

stopped growing in second grade,
so that's not too much of a stretch.

She's a baller, too.

She's awesome. Yeah, his
his kids are great.

His youngest daughter, who I. Oh, yeah.

They're both ballers, actually.

Yeah. Yeah.

His younger daughter,

who's very close friends with
my daughter, is such a sweet kid.

They've been a great addition,
so we got to get him on the podcast. Yes.

Super interesting guy who's made

some incredible sacrifices
to be more present with his family.

I'm just a big fan of Ryan, so.
Yeah. Me too.

See him get on
here. Will be high school, baby.

Yeah,
I hear that. He's the second best player.

Second best player. Yes. Yeah yeah yeah.

What were the other options
there? Bourbon.

Well,
I didn't kind of talked about bourbon.

Bourbon? Yeah, a little widow.

Jane I would say, you know,
if I had to put a top three

on the docket, Widow
Jane would be my first.

Probably would end

mid winter's night.

Dram.

Never heard of it, too.

Excellent.

Hollywood for double Oaks and slash
Jefferson Ocean.

It's like, is that Woodford Reserve or
is that it's Woodford Reserve double Oak.

So they they I believe
pass it through again in another barrel.

Yeah. They do a Kentucky Derby.

Yeah.

Every year
my Uncle Jimmy has like all, all of them.

What about Pappy.

Okay.

So I was I had the opportunity
to have some happy 23.

Okay.

I did a lot of community work with Dream
Writer up in Farmington.

Polo grounds started,
and for the first several years

we ran the fireman chili off.

Since we fixed so much, so many fire
trucks, they came to us and said,

hey, would be a good place
to give money back.

And so we said volunteer fire departments.

They don't have as much funding
as state programs.

So we would do a really fun chili cookoff
with those guys.

I am firefighter over policemen. Sorry.

Firefighters love police officers too,
but firefighters are people

you'd rather have a beer with, I think.

And it was great.

We raised all these monies
for these departments

so that they could,
you know, replace their bedding

for when they could do overnights
and all this great stuff.

And so because of our involvement there,
I got to go to one of my,

you know, least go to these like events.

And they did a cigar and bourbon thing
they were pouring.

Pappy 23.

So Mike obviously does a lot
for Special Olympics.

Yeah.

He was my introduction to
I think he started in Waterbury.

Is he?

I think he's in Cheshire now, but he's in
what is it the like the distributor?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I think trucking.

Yeah. They play all the ideas.

But I had Pappy 23 and I will tell you,
I would never buy a bottle. Wow.

I like a little water in my whiskey.

I don't like to

lose my voice after drinking.

Yeah, and happy is a hopper gas.

It is just
I understand that I appreciate it.

It's just not the thing I sit on.

Interesting. So I gave it to me.

I probably,

I definitely share it
because it's not my thing,

but my last podcast guest 169
Seth Wickersham,

ESPN reporter, wrote a book about Tom
Brady and all these quarterbacks.

He had a guy, right? The forward.

Right? Thompson. Right.

Thompson wrote a whole book about Pappy
Pappy Land.

So I tell Seth, I'm like, hey,
can I get an autograph bottle of Pappy?

Because I could get you the autograph.
I can't get you the Pappy.

So I was trying to squeeze
in some more. Pappy.

There was a documentary called neat.
Did you ever see that?

I saw I haven't watched it yet.

Okay.

It came out like, a little while ago,
and I could be getting this

wrong here, but
I'm going to get some of the details here.

But the feeling is correct.

There was a man who had worked at Pappy,

which is,
I think, Buffalo Trace Distillery.

He had worked there for, you know, decades
and with his father and his brother,

and they had been gifted a bottle

of Pappy 23, to, you know,
because of their years of service.

And this is where the details are going
to be wrong, but the feeling is correct.

So I apologize
if I get some of these wrong.

I don't want people screaming like,

you got that wrong,
but there was some type of tragedy.

They decided to save the bottle
for a special occasion.

Oh no, I'm sorry.
They decided to not wait.

They just drank the bottle

because they're like, you know what?

They wanted to save
for a special occasion.

But one of them was like,
no, we're not guaranteed tomorrow.

We need to do this.

And and then shortly thereafter,
after they enjoyed

that bottle,
one of them died in a car accident.

And it just really brought something to
the forefront that we're not guaranteed.

Yeah, right.

It's got to take advantage.

And we have no, not open bottles.

My guy Matt Whitney once said, wise man

said, don't
wait for the occasion for the bottle.

Make the bottle the occasion.

That's his brother,

wise man. Right?

It seems like wise.

I think little bro agrees.

That's kind of agreeing with Matt Whitney.

Wise man once said. So.
I agree with that one.

I had a thing a pappy once, and I waited
and waited and waited for the thing.

And you know what?

Fantasy football after.

I'm just going to have let all my boys
taste it.

Sure.

You know, I thought a little taste
here, a little taste here.

Why is my guy
grabbing goes do do do do do.

And I'm like, but you're like 40, $56.

Oh well yeah.

What are you gonna do?

I mean, I there's one bottle that I think.

So my wife got me a bottle
on the day that we got married, which was

a bottle of Yellowstone that,

you know,
that has, like, our engraved on it.

I only drink that once a year, actually.

Not even close to being my favorite
bourbon, but that one seems like.

All right, well, anniversary time, I'll
pull that bottle out, get to look

at the label that you have, like, or
the bottle that was engraved, but, Yeah.

Don't wait.

Just open the bottle.

Open the bottle, baby
bottle for a Tuesday.

I like it, I like it.

And you said running. Running?

Yeah, I ran a marathon.

2015 Hartford Marathon.

Four hours and 45 minutes.

That's a great time.

And it was.

And I paid 80 to $100 to do so.

And now I'm glad I did it.

I cried when I finished it was
I accomplished something huge.

My family
was there at two different miles.

So I know you ran. How many have you ran?

So I run three
and trying to get to the fourth. Wow.

My introduction into running
was actually inspired by my daughter. She,

when she was five, I

think she had come to me and said, dad,
I need to do this thing.

How do I do it?

And I said, well,
you need to do x, y, and Z.

And she says, well, I can't do that.
That's too hard.

And we have a rule in our house that's,
you can't say I can't.

You can say I can't yet,
but you can't say power of yet.

Yeah. So growth mindset. Yeah.

So I said, she said,
well I don't care dad, I can't do it.

So I said, all right.

About a month later she accomplished
that goal and I was floored.

It was
it was actually I actually had questioned

whether or not I should have given her
that task, but she did it.

I was super proud of her.

And she says to me, well, dad,

is there anything like she started
feeling real proud about herself?

Is there anything you've ever
wanted to do that you never did?

And I said, well,
I've always wanted to run a marathon.

She said, well, why haven't you, dad?

And I said, well,

you know, when I was playing soccer
in college, I tore my calf muscle.

And ever since then, every time

I try to run a camp and she says, daddy,
we don't say I can this household.

And I said, I

don't really care.

So we drove home.

It was January and we drove home.

I booked the Harvard Marathon in October,
and I was, I think, 40

pounds heavier than I am right now.

And,
you know, was building a business fitness

sometimes and diet
really a really painful processes.

And so I was like,
I don't know what to do, but

I went to Fleet Feet right over on
Farmington

Avenue and said, hey, I'm
going to run a marathon in in ten months.

Can you put shoes on my feet?

They did that. I downloaded a running app

and like Forrest Gump, me
and I just started running.

I was running, I bought a book

40 weeks to a 44 hour marathon
and it followed it religiously.

I think I lost 30 pounds
that year, just running 40

miles a week, and I was

Harvard Marathon Day.

I was running,
I was on pace for like a 350.

I was so excited. I was so excited.

Mile 17 broke my ankle broke, broke
like a stress fracture.

Right on the Talis. Never tell her neck.

I don't remember the name of my wife,
I tell you, and blew my race up.

Really struggled at that point on
and I finished at I think

of 440 or 445 similar time.

It just took a long time
to get those last few miles.

But I'll tell you, when I finished, there
was no way I was not finishing that race.

Very painful to finish marathons
in general, but certainly on

on the ankle that I had
when I crossed that finish line,

thinking about my daughter, seeing that
I was able to accomplish this thing.

And not only that,
when I ran the marathon that year,

I actually got a bunch of other guys
in the solar industry, about 20 in total

to run marathons
to, and I shared with my daughter,

I said, do you understand that

your bravery to do that
hard thing that I asked you to do

inspired 20 grown men
to do a very hard thing?

Yeah.
And so I hope that was impactful to her.

Yes. She realizes
the power that you've had in times.

And, I had got accepted to run
at the Boston

Marathon six months later,
so I had to rehab for about two months.

I was in a boot after Hartford.

And Jen Tirrell,
I don't know if you know Jen Concentric

Wellness,
she's a athletic trainer in Newington.

Fantastic.

She got me out of a boo

in marathon ready at the Boston
Marathon by the following April.

Did not have a fast time.

I raised $15,000

for Dana-Farber cancer in honor of my mom
that passed in cancer when I was ten.

And I remember looking at my wife because
when I finished the Hartford Marathon

and didn't get my son for our marathon,
I was really disappointed.

And my wife said to me,

she's like, it's such a shame that you did
such a incredible thing.

And you walk away sad. Yeah.

Yeah. So Avi obviously.

Oh yeah.

So he said something amazing. Human being.

Yeah. He's great.

And he's been someone that I relied

on heavily because he's very accomplished
endurance athlete.

And I hate to even say that
I'm an endurance athlete.

I just want a few more months,
and I try to get his running

as much as I can with running a business
and having a family.

But the most important advice he ever gave
me is always have your next race booked,

because the second you don't do
that is when you stop running.

And for me, that's been true.

The second I didn't have a race book,

I become way less consistent
because I kind of need that carrot.

Like, what am I training for?

Yeah.

Makes it easier to train
when you're actually training with purpose

as opposed to just like, maintaining
something, just running to run.

But my wife and I,

we our Christmas gift to each other was,

a a peloton tread.

So nice.

Remember,
there was all that outrage years ago.

I remember Palatine came out with a
a commercial where

the husband bought the wife of peloton.

And it was all this public outcry.

It was like,
you shouldn't get your wife at peloton.

Well, I got my wife time,
but we we love it that we like to run.

So it was a good gift for the both.

Yeah, definitely.

And zero 0%
interest on those purchases too.

So is peloton
sponsor peloton should be a sponsor.

No, we'll get them on the horn.

I think we're cutting up
cutting on time, but.

So we'll just a couple upcoming events
for Friends of Feeny.

We have June 14th at the Bristol

Blues, May 11th at the Hartford Athletic.

August 14th at the Hartford Yard Goats.

And our fifth annual golf tournament,
September 9th.

Please join us. Please sponsor.

Bring the kids. Oh,

May Memorial Day.

Where's the best place
to find all the upcoming events?

Good question.

Friends or Instagram or Facebook friends?

If you check out for our upcoming events,
or you could even subscribe

to our mailing list.

We send a mailing email
once a month through MailChimp.

We could send you that. Hook you up.

Oh. I also want to shout out
Tommy's place in Cape Cod.

We've helped.

The same family and Tommy's

place is right in Centerville, Cape Cod.

A wonderful place to Centerville Circuit.

You have the park, you have Tommy's place,
you have penny candy.

You have four seats. Ice cream.

If you want to go down a little farther,
you have Craig Ville Beach.

Oh, and I miss the library
and thrifty niche.

So it's my.

I've been going there for 47 years.

The 1856 country
store is my favorite place,

and I got this at Thrifty

Niche as a consignment shop, but
they helped a family that we've helped.

So Tim gave us a tour.

Tim runs Tommy's Place.

It's named after someone in Falmouth.

I think a bartender in Falmouth started
Tommy's place.

It helps.

Every week
they pronounce that Falmouth. Yes.

There's some, like, Long Falmouth. Yeah.

It started in Falmouth,
but then they have a house in Centerville,

their mansions
that they needed for people,

children
that are struggling with cancer. So.

And they give them a week
and it's like indoor pool

maybe like I'll show you like the Simpsons
room, the Bruins room, Lego room.

It's an amazing place in Centerville.

And I actually mean

the quarter deck in Falmouth.

I was talking to the bartender.

He knows he knows how Tommy's place
started.

He knows Tim.

I gave a friend's
a Feeney patches behind the bar.

A priest overheard me,
gave a donation to friends of Feeney.

So thank you for the priest
if he ever hears this.

And Tim was a wonderful person
who gave me a tour,

and I got this at a consignment shop.

So I had to rep Tommy's place.

And I wanted to share
that this is a wonderful place.

They helped children and families
just like we do,

and penny
Candy is my favorite place on earth.

They they're going to sponsor.

We're going to put together
a Cape Cod basket for the golf tournament.

Penny candy,
maybe four sees a golf and Celtic kitchen.

So a little Cape Cod package.

And then thank you for everything
that Tommy's place is doing.

I have a question for you.
Yeah. Is that okay?

Of course, of course.

What do you think? Over.

How long is friends have been going?

Around 2019.

So seven years?

6 or 7 years? Six. Seven.

You can cut that out.

What do

you think over that time period,
can you think of a single event or thing

that was the most impactful to you
personally?

Good question, good question.

Helping.

Yeah, things and experience
incredible stuff.

Because whenever you're involved

in charity,
there's so many things that feel great.

Yeah, helping my first family will always
be near and dear to my heart is my.

It was my student.

She's graduated from college since then.

She comes back and substitutes
at the school where it all happened.

She's an amazing human.

She's working so hard and like she lost
her dad and she's, like, powering through.

She's going for a PhD. I'm
so proud of her.

Like I'm practically like an uncle.

She had twins in the family.
I have twins in the family.

It's just wonderful people.

So that's one family.

Just there's so many, so many.

But that one really stands out.

Helping families

from Waterbury for my hometown,
helping families

that just recently,

my brother in law's friend,
you know, lost his loved ones.

So my brother in law
reaches out on his behalf.

We send the check.

That friend calls my brother
in law crying in support.

Like, thank you Sam for reaching out
and advocating on my behalf.

It was a pleasant surprise like that
family doesn't even know existed yet.

Here we are.

We send them a check
and so they're very grateful.

Just.

Yeah, helping over 150 families.

So, Hall, you know, I mean, that's

I mean, we are all so consumed
with our lives and our families.

That's
150 people like families to affect.

That's a huge number is a huge number
150.

I shared once where I was collecting
raffle tickets, once at a yard goats

game, and I was like,
hey, you want to support?

And the mom looked at her daughter
and I was like, hey, that's friends.

They helped us when daddy passed away

and I was like, oh my God,
I'm trying to sell him a raffle ticket.

And I helped him.

I didn't even know. So

just trying to help as many families
as we can.

Yeah, yeah.

So we're happy to have you on board.

We can't wait to be utilized
in any way that you think is appropriate.

Yeah.

Toy drive for sure, for sure.

Sponsorships would be amazing.

You know, all of our customers involved.

You know, we talked to hundreds of people
every month,

so there's definitely a lot of opportunity
there to help.

And that's actually simpler than the way
we used to do it.

Yeah.

Trying to find a bunch of people
to get toys.

Well, it's been an honor talking with you.

This is Feeney Talks
with friends episode 170 with the whole

ho h to the of Hovey.

What else have we got?

I got 99 problems,
but solar panels ain't one.

Any closing remarks?

Oh, man, I, I go Celtics and go Sox!

Boo! We're Knicks.

This is a Knicks podcast.

Sorry that we could do
a different closing statement.

I have no idea.

That seems like a really hard thing to.

I don't.

Closing statement.

I guess I would
thank you for what you're doing.

I know that the,
the energy and time that goes into

honestly, sometimes you take
on the emotional pain of the people

that you're helping.

So it can be very, very emotionally trying
as you're helping people.

So I give you a lot of credit
and thank you for helping people

that need it and going out and finding
those people as hard as you can, because

people need help.

And I'm glad that there are people
that are accepting it, and I can't

wait to be able to use the things
that we've done in the past

to help the families
that you're in touch with. Yeah.

You have a wonderful story.

Thank you for sharing
and I can't wait to collab in partner.

We got a bright future ahead.

This is full speed ahead to the moon right
here.

Friends of Feeney in West Hartford.

Solar with Hovey.

Tomorrow is a big day for me.

I'm. I'm getting honored

with the champion of children
by the Village of Children and Families.

So very proud.

That's at the Hartford Golf Golf Club.

Nothing wrong with that place, right?

I'm giving a five minute speech.
Do you get to play?

I should get a free round. Right? Hello?

Me and Geno.

Yeah,
but who's who listens to this podcast?

They need to, like,
we need to get around here.

And because we were discussing it
together.

I think it's only fair
that we both get around to golf there,

and it's wasted on me. I got what's that?

Is it
is it in Bloomfield or West Hartford?

It's a very difficult course.
Gillette ridge.

Oh, impossible.

Not my least favorite,
because it's so challenging.

I understand it's a fantastic golf course
for people that are great.

And golf.

It was awful for me.

I like I couldn't even finish 18 holes
because I didn't bring,

you know, a thousand golf balls with me.

That place was way too hard for me.

I wish I was better.

It's awful.

But Harford Country club, I'm in.

I'm honored again.

So good to see you and chat
with you on three.

We'll say be a good friend.

One. Two. Three. Be a good friend.