Community members learned more about a local business owner last week.
Mike Garcia was the guest speaker of a Hispanic Council meeting.
The Prince William Chamber of Commerce hosted the discussion at its headquarters in Manassas on November 5.
Garcia is the owner of Mike Garcia Construction, which was established more than 35 years ago.
Here is a video of the meeting:
Here is a translation of the video, which was completed with 80 percent accuracy:
Mike Garcia:
And, and it’s, it’s, people ask me all the time, how did you know? And I said, very, very easy. I said, I watched the man that lived across the street from where we lived. I grew up in Manassas park. I watched the man across the street from the age of 10 till about the age of 12. So over a two year period, he retired. I took an early retirement from Sears. Um, he bought the first seamless gutter machine in Northern Virginia. So at that time you only bought gutters and 10 foot sections and you put it together and that’s where it would always leak. And, and that’s, that’s just what you expected. So he bought this machine that would make a 400 foot long gutter and no seams and started contracting through Sears. And I watched him in two years go from, from being as poor as we were to all of a sudden, um, you know, he’s gotten new vehicles and he’s building a house.
Uh, he built a 120 foot long rambler on a full basement on five acres in Nokesville. And I thought that’s the richest, was the richest man I knew, and I S I witnessed it happen. So I thought, you know what, I can do it. So I just started working for him. Um, I was the guy when the gutters hit the ground, I would take my little tape measure and cut, cut it into eight foot sections, load it in the truck, rake up all the debris that fell out, and he would pay me $10 a day and I’d go sit under the shade and read comic books for the rest of the day. I mean, and, but I watched and I’m, I observed. So my wife and I, uh, well my soon to be wife, we, uh, it was as simple as I’m going to follow him.
I’m gonna follow in his footsteps and I’m going to do exactly what he does. It may take me longer because you know, the economy or whatever. But I, I, I had what we called in our family. We have the Mexican mentality means we work, we work no matter how long it takes. Uh, as a matter of fact, as I grew and went up, up in his company, he used to call me and it wasn’t racist back then. We didn’t, we didn’t know anything. I mean, I didn’t take it as being racist, but he used to call me his Mexican Bacco, y’all know, when a backhoe is, it’s a piece of machinery, uh, you know, and, and I was proud of it, you know, because he was bragging on me to, to the people that they could dump, you know, to dump truck loads of gravel, give me a wheelbarrow and a shovel, and I would move that whole pile inside the basement.
I never complained because I knew I was on a path and I would eventually get there, but I just had to, I just had to work for it. So I got a Robyn and I got married at 18. Uh, I went to work for him full time after I graduated and stopped working just in the summers. Within one year, I was running his crew out in the field. Uh, so I surpassed, he had four other employees and they hated me because I wanted, I wanted to be his number one. And I, I just worked my way up through the ranks. I would stay late, I would work weekends. It didn’t matter. I told my wife before we got married, I said, you know, I’m going to work a lot of hours. You know, that right? And she goes, I, I know, but it’ll, it’ll, it’ll be worth it, be worth it in the end.
So, uh, you know, I, I, uh, became his foreman, and within a year and a half I knew that I had learned all I could learn from him and it was time to move on. So I moved to North Carolina. The reason why I made that decision, it was a crossroads in my life. Uh, I realized it was all about the money for him. Okay. He was in business just for the dollar. There was no pride. Um, you know, and the way I figured it out was I asked him if I could build a house, could he help me build a house on this side? He gets the loans, I will do all the work and we’ll sell the house and then split the money with me. So he did that. So he was getting mad at me because I put more quality into the house that we were doing on his job.
So I was learning because our path is all about learning and, and I realize it’s just about the money with him and, and that, that was okay, but I wanted to make them make my Mark. So he, it came out of his mouth one day that I heard him say to, uh, to another subcontractor. I’m rich, I’m tired of hiding it. And that hit me wrong, you know, because it was, it, to me, it was, it was a very arrogant thing to say. Um, so I, I just stored it away. I said, you know, it’s, I’m going to treat my employees better than that. I’m going to, um, you know, he never had an employee longer than five years. So I, I just, I’ve observed and I just got better and I, and I thought, well, money will come by doing what you love. You do it, you do it for the love of doing it.
You gotta make a living. And sometimes you have to work seven days a week to make that live in, but you’re still trying to, your name, your name is, is the value. It’s not what you do, it’s your name. So I don’t know why I knew that. I took all the pieces and I started on all my out on my own. Uh, and I use Mike Garcia construction. I felt like, what better way of, you know, creating, uh, quality and, uh, I want to protect my name. So off I went and for about 15 years, I had blinders on. I built five houses a year for 15 years. And I did everything. I mean, I, I say everything I framed on my, I cleared the trees off off of the lots. Um, I didn’t lay the block, but I poured the footings. I, I frame, I framed the houses, I trim the houses.
Uh, I even put in the yards and the driveways. I did as much as I could. And I did five, five houses a year. And, and I never focused on the money. It was all about the quality and the houses were getting more and more complicated. And, and I’m, I’m doing the pre-selling and I was my own salesman. And, uh, you know, when people were struggling to, to sell their house, I would say, you have a house to sell. And they’d say, yeah, I bet I can’t sell it. I’ll say, well, how much, how much equity do you think you have in your house? I’d like to come see your house. So I’d go look at the house and I go, you know, I can build you a house and I’ll take your house in on trade and I’ll give you 50. I’ll take 50,000 off of the value of a new house and we’ll just trade houses.
And, and I was doing that. And other people were sitting back and they couldn’t sell their houses. And I was, you know, to me it was just a little nother little stepping stone. And all of a sudden, my wife and I owned about 25 rental properties and it was created a nightmare of headaches, nightmare headache. So, uh, to get a phone call in the middle of the night that, uh, you know, the house is on fire, uh, or a pipe burst and it’s just, you know, flooding the house. Uh, you know, I realized this is probably not how I’m going to create wealth, you know, it helps, you know, I didn’t understand money. I didn’t understand investing. Uh, all I knew was what I knew, which was construction and, and making a name for myself. So, uh, I started selling those off. Well, in 1996 I read and I’ve read the art of the deal by Donald Trump.
Okay. Whether you like them man, or not, had no idea who he was. I, that book was referred to me and was like, my blinders came off and I S I told my wife, I said, I think it’s time I build an office building, so I’ll never forget it. She, she just said she laughed at me. She said, with what? And I said, I don’t know, but I’m gonna figure it out. So what I, what I did is this is how simple it is. And I certainly don’t make it wanting to make it sound like it’s simple, cause it’s not, you have to have guts to do this. You have to be fearless. Okay. And, and I’ll get into that a little bit later, but you know, I didn’t want to fail. I was the only son. And as you know, and, and in our culture, we’re expected to take care of the family, right?
So, so I knew that was gonna be on me, so I could not fail, but I knew this was the right thing to do. So I called John Norman Norman Realty back in the time John’s since passed on. And, uh, I w I, he sent me out with his son to look at commercial properties. So we looked at, spent a half a day and, and then I asked him, I said, so John, if you were me or, or, uh, there was Jay, his son, I said, Jay, if you were me, which one would you go with? And, uh, cause that’s something I’d always ask my trades, Hey, if this was your house, how would you do this? So I wanted his opinion. And he said, I do, I would go with this one and this is why, and made a lot of sense. So I put a $5,000 on that piece of property and I, I, uh, I said, do you know of an architect?
Cause I was drawing my own house plant and that’s all I knew was yeah, was a residential. So he gave me a name of an architect. So I went to the architect, his name was Mike Carroll. I said, Mike, I don’t have any money to pay you right now. I said, but this is a piece of property that I have. I said, true Jewish draw me a building that goes on it. He says, well yeah, I can do that. He says, but first you need to go to an engineer and you need to have an engineer take the lot and figure out how much parking you need and then give me the size of a building and I’ll draw you something. I said, okay. So, so I did that. I went to my residential engineer and he did that for me and uh, didn’t charge me a lot of money.
I went back to the, uh, architect. He drew me a building. It was on a ledger piece of paper. I still have it. And I just went around to every business owner that I knew and I said, I’m thinking about building an office building. Do you want to be my partner? And I had to go through about a dozen people and I found his name is bill Laith on hands budget motels. Um, and he says, uh, yeah, you know, I think I’ve, I think I would like to do it. How much? How much is it going to cost? I said, I figure it’s going to cost $4 million. He goes, okay, well bank’s gonna require 25% down $1 million. I have my 500,000. Do you have yours? And I want, yeah, no, not yet, but I will, I said, I’ll get back with you. So, uh, in reading re reading that book, it’s, it starts with an idea and then you just, you just got to get down into the weeds.
And I said, well, you know, my builder fee was going to be $375,000 and this will be good. Nathan, you’ll like this week, 375,000. So I called BB and T and I said, is there any way you could just keep that 375,000 and I’ll give you 125,000 spread out over six draws while I’m building the building? And they said, I don’t know, nobody’s ever asked us that. Let me check. They came back and says, yeah, well we’ll let you do that. So I literally, uh, that’s how I started my first office building. So, and that’s something I, that I, you know, of course I had houses that I’m trying to sell and I sold some of those and used it to put in the 125,000. But that was my first building. That was in 1997. It was the first, uh, first office building that had been built in Prince William County in like 10 years.
I mean, it was, it was a dry period. So I jumped out first, at least up. And, and then I’m like, I’m in commercial construction too. So we started growing our commercial division, um, 38. So, so I’m in my 38th year now. Uh, I’ve, I’ve accumulated, uh, I think it’s, it sounds terrible and I should know this, but again, it’s not about the money. And, and I have about 46, 47, 48 properties in my family’s portfolio that we manage. I don’t do it. My sons do it, my wife does it. So Mike, my construction company has become a tool in my toolbox to create generational wealth. And I think especially for, for our heritage, it’s a bout family. It starts with family. You know, I, um, I’m embarrassed to say when I, I remember this and I tell people that I’m embarrassed about it. I, when my wife and I, you know, from such a young age, I told her, you know, we waited over five years to have kids cause I was working all the time and I told her, you know, but when we started having kids, you know, I’m going to pull.
And then the kids, you know, we ended up having two sons. Um, and I wanted more, but she, I told her, I said, you know, when you’re, when you, cause you’re, it’s the kids are on you. I’m working. And that was the deal. And I told her, I said, you know, if you, if we can just cause the value of, of anything you get out of life. I mean, I’ve been married 41 years now and you know, that that truly is the greatest success of my life. It really is. Because I wouldn’t have done it without her. We don’t need that. I mean, men know we could live in a garage, you know, have a nice car and live in a nice garage. I mean, it doesn’t take that much. But, uh, you know, there’s been plenty of times when my wife has said when is enough enough.
Okay. That, I mean, we’ve had all of those. I mean, in my business it’s like this. So we’ve weathered three really hard recessions and you got to know what’s gonna come. If you’re in business today, you, you’ve got to know that, like right now is the time to be putting 110% in it. And, and you know, when my oldest son got out of, he graduated from UVA on a Sunday, Monday of the next day, I put him building a 40,000 square foot square foot medical office building. Oh, okay. There was no week vacation, you know, off in the tropics. No, you know, he knew, he knew if you’re going to come in our business, you are going to work. My average employee stays with our company. Uh, I’d say right now our average is probably 16 years. The oldest, uh, he retired for medical reasons. He was with us 34 years.
I mean, when he came to work for me, he was living in a van. He was 17 years old, living in the back of a band. So, you know, we, we, um, my employees become family. My goal with every employee is for me to help them build a house that should be everybody’s goal. You know, you can buy a house but build a house, put the thought into that house. Uh, R R I, I just hired someone. Uh, I’ve known him since he was two years old. His name is, uh, BJ, Brayden, he, he is a, uh, he’s a son of one of my partners in the excavation business. Hardworking, worked for his dad, but his, his dad is not like me. He, he, uh, he’s just hard. He’s hard on his kids and, and you know, you, you, there’s a balance there and that balance wasn’t there and you, you got to figure out, you just got to figure out what that balance is.
But I always thought, man, I a great worker, you know, but he didn’t pay him enough. He gave him a place, he gave him a house to live in. He gave him a vehicle to drive paid for his insurance, but his, his salary was so small that what his father didn’t realize. His friends all make 10 times more money than he does. They live in nicer houses, but he was going to inherit a big chunk of money. My, my horn Baker project, that’s, he’s my partner in that development. Uh, we made a lot of money off that development. It’s a industrial park, corn in industrial park called, um, horn, Baker industrial park. And uh, but you can’t expect your kids to be a slave to you and then wait for you to die. But that’s not, that’s not good. You know, it doesn’t, it doesn’t bring them along the way, the way that you should bring them, you know.
So, uh, but anyways, so he came, he quit his father and, and I, I stayed out of it for one year and my son, my oldest son, Michael says, dad, um, I think you should reach out to BJ cause somebody’s going to grab him. And so, so before I did, I talked to his father and made sure it was okay. I said, look, somebody’s gonna get him. Why don’t you let me offer him a job and and see if, um, he would take it. At least he’s close. He’s not going to move out of state cause you guys may make amends and he may come take over your company. So he, he was fine with that. So I offered him a job, got him on, on board. Within two months I took him to a one acre lot up on bull run mountain that I had just, I buy things and just stick it on the shelf.
Uh, it was a one acre lot that I paid $25,000 for because it didn’t, perk means it did. You couldn’t get a drainfield if y’all know what that is. But I knew how to solve all those things, so I solved it. Uh, and then I had $30,000 into it and I said, BJ, uh, would you like to build a house here? I said, I’ll sell you the lot. Uh, I sold it to him for $10,000. That’s gives you an idea of who, who I am. I get, I sold it to him for $10,000. And I said, you can use the equity and value of this land and you won’t have to put any money out of your pocket. You can build a house. And, and it was like the greatest gift I could ever get somewhere. So do you think he’s going anywhere? No. No.
And he’s been working on his house for a year and a half. Okay. I maybe he’s, he’s taken forever. He wants to do everything himself because he’s going to live there his entire life. So you help people and they, you know, you share, because I was talking to Nathan earlier, you know, money is the root of all evil. It is. I’ve, I’ve witnessed it. Uh, I’ve seen, I’ve seen people’s family. Parents died. The kids turn on one another and you know, and that’s part of it. You know, you got a, um, the value is, is, is, is knowing how to make it, knowing that you’ve got the security of knowing, no matter what happens in the world, you can survive. That’s why I personally believe I a trade a trade school. You know, the greatest value we can give our kids is to teach them our work ethics.
My kids have seen how I work and it was, and it still is to this day. I have, I can work, I can, I can tell you this, I can work about 31 to 32 days in a row and then I have to have three days off. So I’m right now I’m pushing about 30 days. I’m, my energy level is really low so I’m going to be recharging. I’m taking Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. But that’s me. That’s, that’s what drives me. It’s not the money. It’s the creating the relationships, helping as many people as I can. Um, I try, I want to give you guys something that you can take away from this today, that, that can alter how you think. And I think the way I can do that is, you know, even to this day, I, well I, I checked how many emails I have in my computer and I don’t, I don’t erase emails. I’m involved in 23 different LLCs, have many, many partners. There’s many, many things get said and I have to protect myself, so I’m afraid to, you know, but I have 293 emails. I have not opened.
And I opened them. I, I, I, I made it to be unread so that I’ll go back to it. Okay. But it’s, so I, I know I’m falling behind. I know it. Okay. But I’m still doing the best I can and anybody, if they get to me, I apologize. You know? But it’s, it is, it’s not, it’s not for me. Cause I have built some of the most gorgeous things for people. People come to me and it’s like, I have the money, I can afford anything I want. I just don’t want to be taken advantage of. So, I mean, I built bowling alleys in people’s houses, indoor swimming pools, secret rooms, guns, vaults. I mean, what, what, what? I just tell people, whatever you think you’re going to tell me, it’s unique. I’ve already done it, you know, and, and you know, your secrets are your seniors.
I’ll never, never go anywhere. Uh, but you know, they’ve known that, that it’s my passion. They, they chose me. Not because I was the smartest guy, it’s because I had a passion to work for them. And you know what, I, I know I had 10 times the money that most people come to me that wants me to build a house. You know what, I, I still have that passion side about the money. I just want, I tell people I want to satisfy you so that you’ll tell everybody you know how you retreated. And that’s, we don’t advertise. We’ve never really advertised other than I tell people, you know, good people help good people. So if I can satisfy you, you’ll spread my name and they do it.
I do. I do have a little little smart car. When they first came out, we bought one and we wrapped it a micro say construction and I said, I will drive that thing and please do you have right now? You know, we had as many, uh, in the boom time we had about 30. Cause I have it goes up and down. Yeah, we had about 30. And I will tell you this, um, I, I, uh, I didn’t make any more money when I had 30 as I do now at 15. Okay. Right? So, so we’re smarter now. I know I have partners that did $40 million worth of volume and they broke in. Okay. Now he says he breaks even, but if you calculate the liability, okay, then he takes on, cause he has over a hundred employees and he’s had employees turn equipment over and die and, and he has trucks on the road that gets an accident and kill people.
Okay. So he’s always in a lawsuit, always in a lawsuit. Now for me, that’s just not me. I, I, you know, but he’s very, you know, it, it, it goes very gradual and everyone seems to think that, you know, the more I do, the more money I’ll make. That’s not true. Okay. It’s not about working, you know, more and making more [inaudible]. It’s about being smarter. I, I would, I, I’m more the tortoise. I want it, you know, I, I S I’ve always said I want to do this 50 years, 50 years. Now that I’m in my 38th year, so another 12 years, I think I’ll make it. I really do. I think I’ll make it. Um, I’ve learned a lot of things. I mean, in 1999, you know, well, let me just back up. So when I jumped out, built that first office building, it brought some attention to me.
Yeah. Here, you know, economic development. I mean, they got me a building permit off of a footing plan. I didn’t even have a full set of plans. They just, there was nothing had been built in so long. When I was naive enough to think I’m going to build an office building, everybody was like, come on, come on here. You know, they gave me a building permit off I went, well, it got the attention of Cardinal bank. If y’all remember Cardinal. So, you know, they, they approached me, they said, you know, would you like to become a director for the bank? And I’m like, well, you know, I, I don’t know a whole lot about banks. I’m afraid of banks. I’m afraid they’re going to come knock on the door. And one of, you know, call the loans that I have, you know, some, and maybe, maybe I should go over to the other side a little bit, learn a little bit.
So, uh, so when they said, yeah, you only have to buy $50,000 worth of stock. And it was like, do what? But, but I did it. I did it. I probably took a second out on my house or something, I don’t know, but I came up with the money and, uh, so cart, I, I kind of, I was one of 11 directors and I learned about money and what it taught me was, you know what, uh, it’s, it’s a relationship. It’s a partnership. We, you know, so don’t think of your bank as, you know, it’s us against them. They are your partner. Okay. They want you to succeed. You just gotta be very transparent with them, let them know the challenges and, and they want you to succeed. So I had to learn all this from, from the inside. Uh, and, and so when United bank bought Cardinal, uh, I was the only director. They asked to come over. Now, I think it’s because of my last name. That’s what I tell people. I think they just IX, they’re just a bunch of white people. [inaudible]
woman. Yeah. So, so I, I, whenever they did have one woman, uh, so I, I went, I went and I was there for one year and then, uh, John Marshall, uh, asked me to come over to them, to their bank. And it’s a small community bank. So I like small community banks. Um, you know, the big bank. I will tell ya, uh, I have, I’m gonna, I’m gonna write a book. I, it’ll be funny, it’ll be the funniest book, you know, going, going, building for people. Uh, cause it’s, I built houses for people trying to save a marriage and never worked, never worked. Uh, but I’ll, I’ll a lot of funny stories. Um, but uh, I just lost my train of thought while you’re thinking, and then you’d have to leave. I just wanted to introduce the name Lewis. She’s at the museum now. I know you guys helped up in museum.
She’s in the gift shop area, so she has got some treats for you all. And Mike is done. This is courtesy of the day. And that’s right. That was the secret. That was the secret you were doing right there was like, Oh yeah, you remember that. So go ahead. Um, so anyway, I got a call from a BB and T, uh, this’ll, this’ll keep you awake at night. So I built a, I built a, I did a hundred acre, uh, commercial residential mixed use development down on Quantico down off route one. This was back, you know, 2000. It was wide open. I mean, just wide open from 2000, obviously to about 2006, you know, uh, and, and I knew, I knew it was, it was riding and I knew it was going to eventually, you know, run out. So, you know, and I had had experience talking with other, uh, customers of the bank that were much older than me and had done everything that I’m doing.
I’m big at not, not being the first, I like to follow a member, my mentor, I just wanted to follow in his footsteps. I don’t want to, I don’t have to be the, the, the uh, the guy that creates everything. I just, you know, cause it’s not about the money, cause I’m doing this over 50 years. It takes a lot of the pressure off. But, so I did this mixed development and I sold off a hundred lots to Washington homes for $5 million. Right? I sold 300 apartment units for $3 million. And then I was going to keep the commercial component out on route one and I donated 17 acres to a church for a $3 million tax write off because it was zoned for apartments. I mean I’m, I’m in the middle of all of this and figuring it all out and I was having a blast and, and I, I built the first building and the FBI came to me and they, we want to floors 10 year lease.
So I mean, I mean it’s just, it’s all just, you just had to show up. You had to show up and you had to spend 10 12 hour days and, and just, you know, just stay in the game, stay healthy at number one, stay healthy. And uh, when I went to my second second building patent built the building, you know, I landed the United mine workers, it was their national headquarters. They took two floors in the building and then 2006 hits. And BB and T calls me up and says, Mike, uh, you know, we really appreciate all the business that you’ve given us over the years, but, uh, we like to pay you to pay your loan down a million and a half dollars.
And I’m like, do what? I said, are you kidding me? No, no, Mike, we’ve, we did an inhouse appraisal and you know, things aren’t just, they’re not valued what they used to be. So we need you to pay a million and a half, pay your loan down a million and a half dollars. And I was only a 25% partner. Okay. Because I am the creator. I’m the, I’m the construction guy, so I find the dirt, I would develop it, I would take and find the users, I bring them in and I would retain a small piece, like 25%. That was kind of my, my norm. Uh, even my office building that I’m in now, uh, on the Prince William Parkway, right net, right. We’re right. We’re old bridge road and the Parkway hit, there’s a mini lad kill the Keller Williams building building. Uh, it’s really my building, but I put their [inaudible] there. They’re helping me pay off my building.
I believe it will be paid off and four and a half years. Wow. Four and a half years. So I put their name on it. It’s not an ego thing. I’m in the basement, I’m in the basement, I’m in the cheap rent. Uh, but yeah, so they, they um, so I only had 25%, but still a million and half dollars. That was a chunk of money. So I said, are you sure you want to do this? Cause I have given you guys, I don’t know, $300 million worth of business over the years. Yeah. Mike, I’m sorry, this is coming from corporate, you know how to North Carolina. And I said, okay, well let me just send you over a list of all the accounts that I have with you, including all the condo associations that I created that I’m the president of. And let me just send that over to you. Maybe that’ll make a difference. Oh, okay. Well I sent it over. They call me back. Yeah. I’m like, wow, we’d had no idea how much money you had in our bank. Ah, I got you approved to ho you only have to pay $1 million. [inaudible]
so, so, uh, I had two other partners, so I took a $250,000 check over to him and I said, here, here’s my, here’s my 25% you guys send it off. And it was like flushing the toilet. Uh, but no. Yeah, not really. Cause we weren’t gonna sell the building anyway. You know, cause real estate goes up and down and, and I, you know, no matter what you do in your business, you should dabble in real estate. Okay. Just know it. There’s been more millionaires made from real estate than, and I think that will be the case going forward. I don’t think that ever will change. W would you agree? Yep. So it’s not something, you know, it can be a lot of headaches, but no matter what you do, whatever business you have, you want to own, you’re the, if obviously you want to own your own house, you want to own your own business.
So one of the successful things I did is just realizing that an over at horn Baker, uh, you know, we created these warehouse condo buildings. They were 86,000 square feet. They were 37, uh, 2100 square foot, little, little condo base. And, and, and we started selling those to small business owners. And I was telling Nathan, you know, in our portfolio, we have about 30, 35, 36 of them, and they’re all full. Every one of them. And I would tell you, if you ever get an opportunity to buy one, um, buy it because it is a, to me, and I’m involved in a lot of real estate, uh, condo warehouse is the safest commercial real estate that you could own. Okay. Because the tenant takes care of everything on the inside. The condo association takes care of everything on the outside. So for you as the owner, obviously if you’re going to run your business out of it until you hopefully out grow it, then you go up somewhere else and you retain it, you own it personally and you’ve rented to your company so your company’s profits can pay for your personal asset. Okay. Cause at the end of the day, that’s, yeah. I mean, how many here believes social security is going to take care of us when we get older? No. Now that, that money is going to be squandered. So it’s us and our work ethic, uh, is what’s gonna, you know, give us that as we get older, that lifestyle that we’re gonna we’re gonna want
Speaker 2:
on behalf of the Prince William chamber and the Hispanic council, we want to present you with this small token of our appreciation and let you know that it means a lot for you, for us, for you to take time out of your busy schedule and everything you’ve got going on to come and share some of your experience, your wisdom with us. So we’re presenting this to you. Recognition for your support or the Prince William chamber, Hispanic council, your tireless dedication and to our community continues to greatly impact the lives of those who live, work, play, and play in Prince William. And thank you very much. And as we do in the military, we’re also presenting you with the Prince William chamber coin for all the contributions that you made. Thank you very much. I can’t, here’s your certificate and let’s take a picture.
Speaker 3:
[inaudible].
