Brian Jewell (00:01.815)
All right, everybody. My guest today is a tour technology guru who got his start in the travel industry as the marching band manager for the University of Massachusetts. After college, he worked for a major tour company in the Midwest before the pandemic sent him on a career detour into the fields of biotech and health insurance. Today, he's back at home in tourism as the director of product management at Group Collect, where he works with a team of colleagues across the country.

create software solutions for tour companies. Ryan Kramer, welcome to the podcast.

Ryan Kramer (00:34.337)
Thank you so much for having me, Brian.

Brian Jewell (00:36.269)
I am so excited to have you here, Ryan. I love your origin story of how you got into travel. So before we talk all things work from home productivity, I would love for you to share with our audience what happened on that marching band trip that made you say, I got to spend the rest of my life doing this kind of work.

Ryan Kramer (00:55.704)
So that obsession really started over the summer when we were working with this tour company that I've ultimately wound up working with and working with the team there. And I was just finding it so gratifying, so fulfilling, putting together flight manifests, hotel rooms, like maybe it's something odd about me, but I just found that all exhilarating and watching the itinerary come together, seeing the deadlines, when we needed to know what, collecting answers. And it dawned on me.

all at once, this does not have to be the one time in my life I do this. There is an entire team here who's doing this. So I boldly went up to one of the leaders of the company who was with us on the trip and said, can I come work for you someday? And less than a year later, I was sitting in Naperville, Illinois, happily. Wait, let me cut and I don't want to anonymize where I am there. Yeah.

Brian Jewell (01:47.402)
Yeah. Yeah. So you want to just start by less than a year later, I was.

Ryan Kramer (01:50.858)
And less than a year later, I found myself sitting in that office for that company where I happily worked.

Brian Jewell (01:58.759)
You know, I've asked a lot of people about their tourism origin stories and many of them come from, I went to the Grand Canyon, I was in Paris, I was in Peru and I got inspired. You may be the first person who led with flight manifest, but hey, we need those kind of like operational minds in tourism to keep the rest of us, you know, like flighty, you know, travel adventure lovers on the right page. So that's wonderful.

Ryan Kramer (02:13.719)
yeah.

Ryan Kramer (02:25.71)
Appreciate it.

Brian Jewell (02:27.719)
All right, so you got into travel. What kind of work were you doing for the tour company?

Ryan Kramer (02:33.726)
I was the international travel coordinator. So in addition to working with groups on, know, working with the sales team on fulfilling the itineraries that they were providing to groups, I also, with the international job, get to have this kind of broad view over myriad aspects of the process, like working with our foreign exchange.

vendor, working with some of the receptive operators who we engaged overseas, working with different companies. It's much different animal, sending an orchestra from Boston to Dublin than it is sending an orchestra from Boston to DC. Not saying one's better or harder than the other, but just kind of a different animal altogether. In addition to making sure that I was reading State Department briefings on where we were sending people, it just...

gave me this broad view and also was the liaison with our travel insurance provider, which is where I met a certain character in the group travel industry that some people might be familiar with.

Brian Jewell (03:43.059)
Somebody who became pretty important in your life today. Yeah, yeah, excellent. His name is Bud Geisler. For those of you that don't know him, he is a longtime tourism pro and absolute character. If you ever get a chance to spend 10 minutes with Bud, it's going to be 10 minutes well spent. You're going to be laughing if nothing else for sure. So as happened to many tourism professionals in the pandemic, know, companies went on pause, things froze, you know, people had to go find different things to do, at least for

Ryan Kramer (03:45.518)
Someone who is my boss today, yes.

Ryan Kramer (04:00.462)
We'll back.

Brian Jewell (04:12.721)
period of time. Tell us a quick overview of what you did during those years and how you found your way back into tourism from other industries that many people would say, you know, maybe were more promising.

Ryan Kramer (04:25.774)
Sure, absolutely. So when the need to find a job became evident late in 2020, I did what so many people do. I sent my resume to a staffing agency. My recruiter said, hey, I've got this six month, I think it was even four months, it was a pretty short contract, a temporary gig with a big biotech firm in Boston. They just need some pencil pushers to be there.

Brian Jewell (04:51.943)
Maybe.

Ryan Kramer (04:54.198)
And, but you know what, the money was okay, it was what I needed. It was a company based in Boston. And at that time we thought, you know, eventually everything's gonna go back to the office. So I liked the prospect of being closer to home. That's where I'm from originally, it's where I am now. So took this opportunity and at the risk of, you know, going on too long, the short version of the story is I actually stayed with that company for two and a half years.

got brought on full-time, got to help with leading some of the programs that they were doing there in response to COVID. So I have the unfortunate situation of I am someone who both lost a job because COVID started and because COVID ended. I am very luckily sandwiched in between there, but...

After that, I had a short stint in the health insurance industry, worked with some really great people, learned a ton, but just kind of started looking at the road ahead of me. You know, was cresting up on my 30s at the time and thinking, what do I want to do in the long term? And even though I found people who I loved working with and work that I found fulfilling, I had not felt this kind of baseline joy.

of what the group travel industry had to offer. So, you know, it was almost like one day my soul left my body and I started dialing up Bud Geisler. And, you know, just seeing if he had any leads in the industry. And I cannot say how lucky I am that as a matter of fact, he did at his career. And that's where I am now.

Brian Jewell (06:25.02)
Mm.

Brian Jewell (06:29.544)
Yeah.

Brian Jewell (06:36.945)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, fantastic. So in that interim between losing two jobs because of COVID, in that interim, you started working at home, like everybody in sort of knowledge class jobs was working at home. And you kind of have never really stopped since then. So what was that experience like becoming a remote employee like the rest of the world? And then what about it made you say,

Ryan Kramer (06:45.336)
Yeah.

Brian Jewell (07:05.681)
I think I can do this as opposed to all the people who were like, I'm dying to get back to an office.

Ryan Kramer (07:11.086)
Absolutely. So, yeah, it was definitely a paradigm shift because, you know, at my former company in the travel industry, when we were working at home on an emergency basis, that was one thing, but it was temporary and we very safely, you know, wound up reopening the office. So truly had never worked at home for an extended amount of time. Then when I take this job that at the time I think is temporary, I think to myself, okay.

How can I do this? And I can tell you, Brian, I struggled at first with it, especially coming into a brand new company. Because when we were temporarily working at home at my company before that, I knew everyone already. I had relationships and friendships. We did virtual happy hour, know, things like this. Now I have this team and this team that I'm on and these responsibilities and these procedures. And I do not have the benefit of turning to the person beside me.

Brian Jewell (07:45.009)
Hmm. Yeah.

Brian Jewell (07:58.323)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kramer (08:10.646)
and asking for help. I do not have the benefit of water, cooler, banter. I do not have the benefit of, hey, you might be having a rough day, but the clock will strike five and I'll head out to the parking lot, hop in my car, and you know, I love the show, Severance, you know, the Severance chip will flip and you know, I, you know, go, go back home. So I think that it was tough at first. And in the hardest part for me, and I'm not

Brian Jewell (08:28.051)
Ha ha!

Ryan Kramer (08:38.702)
trying to say this for the sake of like, what a goody two shoes. But the hardest part of it for me was knowing when to stop, knowing when it was acceptable to walk away from the desk. Because again, to use that severance analogy again, all of a sudden I'm reintegrated. All of a sudden my home and my work are all in the same place. And that felt daunting. So what I wound up doing was speaking with my

boss at the time, and just kind of expressing how that was difficult for me. And I was not the only one who was expressing this. They had hired a bunch of people who were around my age, kind of at my point in the career, and we were all similarly finding it challenging. So what we did was we started to put a real emphasis based on this feedback on creating not this remote work environment, but truly a virtual office.

Brian Jewell (09:37.991)
Hmm.

Ryan Kramer (09:38.358)
an environment where you can call someone into a huddle on Slack the same way you would walk by their cubicle. We would have time where we would virtually go to the water cooler together. And long story short, like some of my best friends to this day are people who I met working at that job where we were all remote. Like suffice it to say, we got our rhythm down. So yeah.

Brian Jewell (10:03.985)
Yeah. All right. So there, there are a couple of things there. number one, a lot of companies tried to create some kind of quote unquote culture in that remote environment. I think a lot of them failed. now granted there was so much else going on in the world and so much trauma and, and, and worry and fear that maybe it was an unrealistic set of expectations, but it sounds like

you were with a group of people that actually succeeded in creating that culture that is not only functional and collaborative and efficient, but also fostering relationships and making you like your coworkers and be excited to be there. what were you or your leaders doing there that worked when other people were trying and failing at that same thing?

Ryan Kramer (10:54.112)
I think that one change that my boss implemented when the feedback started coming in was we set up guardrails around when the virtual office opened and the virtual office closed. Now, just like when you work in a regular office, if you want to stay late or come in early, you've got the ability to do that but there was a time the virtual office opened and a time that it closed. So setting up that boundary was one thing.

Brian Jewell (11:22.291)
Hmm.

Ryan Kramer (11:22.446)
and then starting to put that emphasis on the recognition that, I challenge anyone listening here who works in an office, are you truly doing tasks, activities directly associated with your work for an eight full hours? You're not, that's not possible, that's not human nature. And I think that that,

recognition that some of that value comes in that camaraderie. That's how you fill some of that interstitial time where you cannot be, you know, doing stuff because your brain needs a break or because there's a distraction. Just trying to integrate that, but virtually, you know, cameras on culture, sort of a thing there. Like if we're going to be virtual, great, but you know, the ability to let's, let's look each other in the eye, let's talk, let's get to know each other.

that dog of yours who's running around, let's see them pop up, you know, that's because I think I think there was the companies who failed I think lost sight of The fact that it is possible to build that camaraderie. I think what oftentimes happened is They discounted That that could happen and they quickly knee-jerk reaction. Nope. This can only happen in the office and they gave up but

Brian Jewell (12:20.263)
Yeah, yeah.

Brian Jewell (12:44.051)
Mm.

Ryan Kramer (12:45.834)
Let me tell you something about this team that I was working with there, Brian, is we were all over the country and all over the world. And we grew and grew and grew, you know, during my time there. And we were able to get the best candidate for any job anywhere in the world. They did not have to be in our geographic footprint.

Which in turn, not only do you get the best candidate, you start making friends all over the world. Your community grows larger and larger. I'm talking to people overseas who are now becoming people who I see every day. It's not only smart from a business point of view, getting that talent acquisition anywhere, but you can actually turn what some people think is inherently this very isolating situation into this very enriching and world expanding

Brian Jewell (13:21.256)
Yeah.

Ryan Kramer (13:44.558)
prospects for your employees.

Brian Jewell (13:44.787)
Yeah, I love that. A lot of our listeners are tourism entrepreneurs, the sorts of people that you interact with at Group Collect every day. Many tourism entrepreneurs work at home out of necessity, right? know, tourism is a lean business. Startups, thankfully, don't require a lot of overhead, a lot of capital. You don't need to have a facility. And so you work at the kitchen table or

you know, the desk in the basement. What are some of the ways that folks like that who are in that solopreneur phase that don't have a team built in to the work experience? What are some of the ways that they can deal with maybe the social isolation that can come with being in the house for long stretches? You know, the temptation to maybe not shower as often as you should to eat junk. How do you

Ryan Kramer (14:38.253)
Yep, yep.

Brian Jewell (14:41.979)
make sure this is a good experience when you don't have that, you know, team of a couple dozen people around the world that you can have fascinating, you know, virtual water coolers with.

Ryan Kramer (14:50.978)
I'm so glad that you asked. So something that's the case now and kind of became the case throughout my early working from home career, that was not the case when I started, is we can now safely leave the house and go be part of our local communities. I proudly teach vinyasa yoga six times a week outside of my work at Group Collect and build community there. I'm a...

proud Orange Theory member. have a community there. I go to visit my family. I go to visit my friends. I engage with my local culture. Because I think it is important to stay rooted in your community. Even if you have a, that's something important. And I'll give Bud Geisler another shout out here. What a great example of someone who has a team all over the world, but has stayed very rooted in his local community. You hear the guy talk about Pittsburgh, no question there. So that's one piece of it.

Brian Jewell (15:41.254)
Yeah.

Ryan Kramer (15:44.758)
The second piece of it is to those folks who are listening, who are in that solopreneur phase, we are so lucky. And part of what I missed about our industry is Brian, our industry shows are kind of the best, aren't they? They're absolutely the best. I mean, the genesis of this conversation was a conversation you had over lunch at CIDA. I don't think you'd mind me sharing with people here. Yeah, and use the time to...

Brian Jewell (15:59.761)
Yeah, absolutely.

Brian Jewell (16:09.18)
Absolutely.

Ryan Kramer (16:14.028)
get to know other people in the industry. See what's going on. Reach out to me, Ryan at groupcollect.com. If you're like, who do I reach out to? Legitimately, I will sit there and chat with you, you know? Build your community from within the industry because I do think that our industry is pretty singular in the way that we support each other. And I think especially to the listeners of this show, you can really leverage that if you're feeling that isolation a bit.

Brian Jewell (16:38.929)
Yeah, I love that. Now you made a reference a minute ago to the benefit of being able to hire talent from all over, hire the best person in the country for your opening rather than, you know, whoever is limited to your geographic area. To that, the tourism entrepreneur that's ready to maybe make their first or second hire or their hires in the past have been local or they've been friends from church or, you know, your brother's nephew or I guess your brother's nephew is also your nephew, but you know what, you know what I'm saying?

it can seem intimidating to be like, okay, well, but where do I start finding that person? Especially when I don't get to interview them in the office first, especially when I don't get to see them every day. You have any tips for beginning to build out that distributed team for someone who hasn't done it before and isn't sure where to start.

Ryan Kramer (17:27.992)
Well, let me tell you this, Brian. I'll caveat this by saying, you know, I am not a recruitment expert, you know, or an HR expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm happy to share with you how I would approach that if I were in that situation. And I think that, I don't know about you, but advice that I give to younger folks who ask me about looking for a job and that I know a lot of people do, because it's advice that was given to me, I still get given to me.

you know, when I've been out of work, you know, this has been given to me is you're not going to get very far just tossing your application on easy apply on LinkedIn or indeed, or, or any of these sites here. That's a good way to just scream into the void. And I think as employers, there needs to be a recognition that that's kind of the case on the other end as well. You get a lot of noise there. So I would not start there.

Brian Jewell (18:07.933)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Jewell (18:19.409)
Hmm.

Ryan Kramer (18:23.578)
I would start with a LinkedIn post targeted at your industry peers saying, I am looking for the best executive assistant in the United States of America, you all know. And going from there, especially with a remote situation, you know, people, the generation kind of below me right now is going through pains to...

Brian Jewell (18:35.633)
Hmm. Yeah.

Ryan Kramer (18:52.194)
build their networks out because they realize these limitations of these digital job searching tools. So I think that as employers, you can reap the benefit of that work that's being put in because people will reach out. I tag people into job postings all the time. I reach out, I ask. Like, I think that we as organizations need to start giving ourselves that same advice that you might give your nephew if they asked you career advice. Or your brother's nephew.

Brian Jewell (18:59.347)
Yeah.

Brian Jewell (19:18.289)
Hmm. Yeah. Or your brother's nephew. That's true. man. I'm just failing at the family tree test today.

Ryan Kramer (19:22.156)
which very well could be your son.

Ryan Kramer (19:30.262)
All good, all good. If that's the case with me, it is a dog. So that is all good.

Brian Jewell (19:34.717)
There you go. Yeah. All right. So, there are a lot of entrepreneurs in our space, who got their start in the 20th century. Let's just say that as a courteous way to call them old. many of those folks are just inherently, viscerally react against any idea like this and say there's no way to keep remote employees on track.

There's no way that anybody puts in a full day of work when they're at their house. There's no way. There's no way. Tell me what you have seen in working with remote teams at three different organizations. Tell me how many slackers you have met that have been abusing the work from home situation and how they got away with it.

Ryan Kramer (20:20.61)
I was about to do the thing where I ball up my fist as if to indicate zero, then I remembered we were on an audio medium here, so I won't say zero. And I'm reminded of a great story that I've heard. one of my favorite shows of all time is The Office. So when Ricky Gervais was creating The Office, he brought the pitch to an executive at the BBC. He goes into their office and the executive says, Ricky, I like this idea for the show, but I don't know if people will buy

Brian Jewell (20:25.981)
Ha ha ha ha!

Brian Jewell (20:36.627)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kramer (20:50.306)
that there is an office where everyone is being so unproductive. And Ricky said, get up, stand up, let's take a walk around the office here at the BBC. And it's true story. And by the time the executive came back and was really paying attention to it, we know how it went. The show is now a huge success. So I think that if you put that emphasis on finding the right people, the right people, the people who your network is gonna recommend.

Brian Jewell (21:08.145)
Yeah.

Ryan Kramer (21:20.494)
They're not trying to rip you off. They're not trying to rip you off. And I hate to tell you, you have just as much risk having someone in the office. And remote work allows us to look at an employee's contributions in terms of output and in terms of value add in a way that the waters can get muddied in the office where you conflate presence with.

Brian Jewell (21:50.993)
Yeah. Presence and productivity are not the same thing. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's really good. when you look at the employment landscape, you know, you mentioned younger people building networks for this reason. where do you see remote fitting in, talented young people looking for jobs in 2025? How willing are they to take a hundred percent work from home job or a hybrid job or a hundred percent work from office job?

Ryan Kramer (22:19.96)
So what I'll say is, again, I don't have any data to back this, but talking to my personal network and my personal friends, there is an expectation that there be at least some flexibility with remote. Which is not to say these are people who are not team players, but these are people who are recognizing that the world around us has changed a lot. The world...

for years and years and years was very accommodating to folks who worked in the office. But the workforce is getting more diverse and that is a great thing in every sense of the word, it's getting more diverse. The more that you allow remote flexibility, the more you get to reap the tremendous benefits of that. Because, you know, I think of it this way. I've got my everything and my life is my dog water. And, you know,

Just for me, in this small scenario here, because I work from home, I get to spend that much more time with him. I get to walk him. I don't have to have a dog walker coming in. I have eyes on him all day long. Now, is there a scenario where I could have a dog walker or a dog sitter? And does that mean I'm a bad dog dad if I do that? No, of course not. You gotta do what you gotta do. But think about the money that I save and the extra relationship that I get to build. And that's with a dog I'm talking about here, Brian.

Brian Jewell (23:46.042)
Yeah.

Ryan Kramer (23:47.084)
You know, I can only imagine with a human kid or an elderly relative who you're taking care of or a child with needs who needs attending to, you know, not to mention, again, the world is not as accommodating to be in a way anymore. Like a lot of the times, the only reason I'm able to keep up with my own housekeeping and laundry is stuff is because I can quickly, my washing machine is right there. I can just walk right over there and take care of it and...

that flexibility becomes less of a nice to have and more of a necessity.

Brian Jewell (24:20.273)
Yeah, yeah, I totally get that. So you take a really active role at GroupCollect in helping to foster that positive culture with employees who are literally all over the place. Tell us about some of the ways that you do that to make sure people are seen, heard, recognized, engaged, and building genuine relationship with each other.

Ryan Kramer (24:42.218)
Absolutely. So I would say kind of the cornerstone of our, you're talking about there, this kind of employee recognition there is we've built a little Slack extension called the kudos bot. And it's very simple. It's a command that you run in Slack where you enter the name of someone who's done something great that deserves recognition. You put a little blurb about that. That gets broadcast out to the whole company.

And at our monthly all hands meeting, everyone who received recognition throughout the month is entered on a wheel and we spin the wheel and the lucky winner gets $100 gift card. Nice way to do things. that doesn't, besides the cost of the gift card cost us anything, which I say to set a contrast. There are some great companies out there that I've worked at that I have worked with at larger companies that I've been at. bonus Lee is one not sponsored, course, but just something I sincerely recommend there.

Brian Jewell (25:20.785)
Nice.

Ryan Kramer (25:39.214)
where if you are working with a larger organization, they can help you infrastructurally, know, delegate out a bit more of that work. But like, again, if you're listening to this, like, and you use Slack, reach out to me. I'll walk you through how I set it up for us. That costs zero dollars.

Brian Jewell (25:57.543)
Yeah. You're also a big believer in a daily meeting, right? Tell us what those look like and why they're important.

Ryan Kramer (26:02.702)
Yeah, absolutely. And to be clear, I'm not talking entire company meeting every day. This depends. I think that, you know, managers and reports, team members collaborating on projects, it's a controversial opinion, but I love the daily standup. I think that it helps fill that gap that gets left when we can't just putter around to each other's cubicles. It lets us see each other. It lets us get caught up.

you know, think your bond with your coworkers becomes so much stronger if you understand what's kind of going on outside of their Zoom window. And that daily time gives you that ability to do so. In addition to the very pragmatic pieces about just, you can't look over and see what someone is working on, you know, in chance to say, is, if you were to look at my external monitor, this is what I'm working on today. So like I said, somewhat of a controversial opinion. I'm a big daily meeting.

Brian Jewell (27:00.499)
Yeah, we're all about the hot takes here. No, no worries there. you guys also, do some intentional, socializing that is built into your work day and no one's being productive and yet you believe in it. So tell me about that and why you think it works.

Ryan Kramer (27:03.305)
Yeah, sure.

Ryan Kramer (27:11.384)
we do.

Ryan Kramer (27:19.638)
Absolutely. So here at Group Collect, once a month, we have our Friday fun. I think we're doing it the third Friday of every month now, but we do all sorts of things. Activities have included a virtual talent show where we all went around and showed off our talents. We have done Two Truths and a Lie.

We have done a Family Feud style game trying to learn more about the life of Bud Geistler. We have done, like, if you just Google, you know, good party games for remote teams, so many free options available to you. And you know what? Sometimes we just sit and talk. And that's nice too.

Brian Jewell (28:03.815)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Now, a couple of times a year, I think any remote team could really benefit from spending some actual physical time together in tourism have some built in opportunities to do that. Of course there's the big trade shows. Maybe you've got a tour you're operating and you have a couple of team members come on it, but, for people who, know, maybe aren't going to be at those big events or who needs some other time where they're not distracted by the conference or

the tour. What are your recommendations? What have you seen work really well for that all team or the executive team or you know, whatever it is, get together in person. What are the best practices?

Ryan Kramer (28:46.146)
think keep it short is one thing. Stay intentional about your agenda. Leave time to talk about what you need to talk about. But emphasize, I think anyone listening here can relate. There are those ministerial tasks that we all have to do any day, just being a member of society. When you're on a remote team, those can be done when you're in the home office. Think about

what is really the hardest to cultivate type of situation when you have those together times. For me often, I find that it's the brainstorms. The laptops are closed. You have the whiteboard or the big white sheets of paper out and you write down ideas. And another hot take here is the number one goal of these retreats, these get togethers should not be productivity. It should be

Brian Jewell (29:20.68)
Hmm.

Brian Jewell (29:42.035)
Hmm.

Ryan Kramer (29:44.556)
Reigniting excitement for what it is that you do That time to share some stories about how your service your product something that you put out into the world Made the world better for someone think of it as your opportunity to kind of fill your team's happiness cup up a couple of times

Brian Jewell (30:05.465)
And filling that cup up, is it mostly socializing and having some heart to hearts and team building exercise, or can you fill that cup up in a way that also is related to the mission of what you're doing?

Ryan Kramer (30:21.44)
I think you can have a little bit of both. think that you can have the kind of, you know, archetypal trust falls kind of things if your team's that. But no, I think that there's also plenty of opportunities to keep it mission focused. Like I said, sharing customer stories is a great way to do that. Going around and sharing personal wins, personal struggles, you know.

Brian Jewell (30:31.187)
Ha

Ryan Kramer (30:51.298)
taking the pragmatic piece of it out and just going into the, did things feel? You know, that can get all focused. So I think there's a little bit of room for everything, but I would say allocate some time to not talk shop and to just get to know each other better. That's it, yeah.

Brian Jewell (31:07.015)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Great tips there. I know you shared your email address earlier, but for anybody that wants to learn more about you, about the GroupCollect solutions, or pick your brain about how they can be a better remote worker, what are the ways that they can learn about you, get in touch with you?

Ryan Kramer (31:24.302)
Absolutely. Ryan at group collect.com. Feel free to add me on LinkedIn. Just look for Ryan Kramer. You'll see group collect underneath there. And yeah, I'd be remiss if I didn't say we've got a lot of exciting things happening here at group collect and a lot of tools that, you know, I dare say for some of our listeners may make having some remote work more practical because of what we're able to accomplish digitally that we might have not been able to before.

I urge you, you can reach out to me. I'd be happy to get you connected with all the right people or there are interest forms and just great additional information about all of our products over at groupcollect.com.

Brian Jewell (32:07.409)
Yeah, fantastic. We will link to all those resources in the show notes. Before I let you go, we have some questions we ask everybody and these are just for fun. So no pressure, just whatever comes to mind. When you book travel, do you choose a window seat or an aisle seat? Yeah, what's that about?

Ryan Kramer (32:20.49)
I'll see. I like to be able to get up and move, which is a big reason why I generally prefer train travel to plane travel. You know, the ability to get move in there. That's the reason why.

Brian Jewell (32:33.713)
Yeah. Well, that's a big benefit of the Northeast is you're so connected by rail in ways that other parts of the country aren't. yeah, kudos on taking advantage of that. what is one thing in your carry on that you wouldn't travel without?

Ryan Kramer (32:47.008)
I would not travel without my white noise machine, because whenever I get to a hotel room, you have the issue of you have that loud air conditioner that goes, for a big part of the night, and then goes quiet. That freaks me out. I need the white noise machine to just get a steady kind of drum beat and drown that.

Brian Jewell (32:58.226)
you

Brian Jewell (33:05.927)
Yeah, whatever it takes to sleep well in a hotel. That's key for sure. If you had a free airline pass or we can make it an Amtrak pass or a Ural pass, you choose. If you had that free pass and a week with nothing else to do, where would you be headed next?

Ryan Kramer (33:08.418)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Kramer (33:20.398)
I would be heading to Tokyo. am a... People are gonna judge me hard for this answer. I'm a big Disney adult. If you're watching any video clips of this year, you see I have Disney memorabilia all over here. And as a theme park nerd, some of the best theme parks in the world are there in Tokyo and down in Osaka. Not just Disney and Universal, but some of the other smaller outfits that they have there. Plus, of course, if I had that entire week, I would get out, explore the city, sample some of the local food, see the local...

Brian Jewell (33:23.068)
Yeah?

Brian Jewell (33:30.184)
Ha ha ha.

Ryan Kramer (33:49.742)
So being able to have that cultural experience tied in with that nerdy experience plus as a airplane nerd, you know being able to fly on Ostensibly a big airplane makes me excited

Brian Jewell (33:59.601)
Yeah, that is exciting. If you take that trip, let me know. I might just join you. I am dying to get to Japan. that's awesome. Last question. What is one thing you have seen or done on the road that you wish you could go back and experience again with somebody you love?

Ryan Kramer (34:15.31)
What a loaded question. I think that I'll give a shout out to our friends down in Savannah who hosted a fantastic conference for us just a weeks ago when we took that river cruise up and down the river there and it was that beautiful sunset. I'd love to take my wife or family or mother loved one, I don't think they allow dogs on there, but you know, and have that experience again. I thought it was beautiful, but I was.

Brian Jewell (34:18.245)
You

Brian Jewell (34:41.115)
I'm

Ryan Kramer (34:44.682)
really happy to get to spend that evening with our fantastic industry colleagues.

Brian Jewell (34:48.625)
Yeah, absolutely. I've been on that cruise a number of times and it just never gets old. The views and the sunset and the music and the food, it's just, it's a wonderful time. So I totally hear you. Ryan, thank you so much for spending some time with us and lending us your knowledge. It's been fascinating.

Ryan Kramer (35:02.882)
Thank you, Brian, I appreciate it.