Episode 6: Interview with Raging Waves Owners Randy and Dawn Witt

 

Jordan
Hello, and welcome to episode six of the relentless pursuit podcast. We have a special interview in store for you guys today. We had a chance to sit down with Randy and Dawn Witt, who are the owners of Raging Waves, Illinois largest Waterpark. And it was a real privilege to be able to speak with them today. We had a gorgeous day. And unfortunately, the park itself was closed due to COVID-19 restrictions. But that did give us the opportunity to sit on top of one of the waterslide towers as we spoke with Randy and Dawn and have a great view of the park and a great opportunity just to really hear their story of the story of Raging Waves how we went from a cornfield to really this amazing place where we’ve visited multiple times and have a lot of great memories with our family. And I know so many other families have had the opportunity to do so as well. So you’re going to hear their story about how it went from a dream and how it transitioned into that reality that we all get to enjoy today, but also how Randy and Dawn navigated their marriage, navigated the relationship, navigated family and raising their children, as well as with friendships and a lot of the skills and topics and things that they had to learn along the way to make the park into what it was. Also, there are a lot of takeaways for us, by the end of the conversation, it was just a really great time spending with them. We did record outdoors. So there is, you’ll notice, some audio in the background. We also had their guest, an extra guest there, Cooper joined us so you’ll hear him a little bit and you will also notice construction of one of their newest attractions that’s in progress right now too, that we’re excited to see once the park reopens. So we hope you enjoy the interview and stick around afterwards for some of our takeaways from it.

First, why don’t you guys tell us a little bit about yourselves and your background and just who you are.

Randy
Okay, well, Dawn, Dawn, I’m Randy. We’ve been married now just celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary relations. Yeah, thank you 34 years. And so I come from a background. I guess the background I come from construction. I’ve had this dream of raging waves for a lot of years, chased it for a long, long time spent countless countless days up in the Dells, just studying and taking pictures and all that kind of stuff, talking to a lot of people getting to meet a lot of people. I will back up a minute I said this was a longtime dream of mine. This wasn’t necessarily, and IT IS NOT Dawn’s dream. And I want to be clear on that it was not Dawn’s dream at all. But she has been incredibly supportive through this whole thing. And like I said, it was a lot of years to get the ball rolling on this thing. We started meeting going to different parks and just traveling all over the country visiting parks, here and there. And then when we were able to finally start meeting the presidents and the owners of these parks, that’s when we were starting to really gain traction and like, Hey, your idea will work. You know, you’ve got to fund it. But your idea will work and I think and I think maybe for you that’s maybe what helped you is when you started to see like hey, maybe this could work, you know, but it was it’s very it needs to really be very clear. Yeah, this was my dream. This is not Dawn’s, you know.

Dawn
I think my my attitude through all that was he salons he keeps providing for our family and he does Just lay around on the couch saying, Oh, I want to do this, I really want to do that, you know, seriously, like, so long as he and he’s such a hard worker, there was no way he was going to let that happen. But if I’m out there working full time and busting my butt, and he’s home on the couch, saying, Oh, I really want to dream, I want to do this. That would be a problem, you know, but the fact that he kept working, and he kept really pursuing, doing both tracks, always a hard worker. So in my attitude too was, although Randy would laugh, I’m not a submissive person as far as what people would consider a submissive wife. But I really felt the Lord telling me like you need to be submissive to what your husband wants to do, and support him in that and I will honor that. And so for me, I think, you know, I think I have been submissive in my own way, as far as I’m gonna make sure the kids have a good childhood. I’m going to make sure that they’re well taken care of. I’m going to make sure that you know, things on the home front are good. And I’m going to help Randy as much as I can, even though it’s maybe not my dream, but I feel the Lord will honor that, you know, and I feel he has. So that’s kind of where I was at the beginning stages. To bring you back there.

Randy
Yeah, no, that’s all fair. Yeah. Yeah. You did a wonderful job. You were always very supportive. I mean, there were hard times. Yeah. And we haven’t even got to the hard times that once the park was being built, there were hard times before that, like, how’s this gonna work? You know, I had a great conversation with her brother, and I think what really helped get the ball rolling is he asked me one day like, Hey, how you doing? I said, I’m good. You know, doing this construction doing that. And we’re busy, you know, so it’s good. Yeah. But how you doing? Yeah, good, you know, everything’s good. And then he asked me a third time. And I felt like it was, you know, God asking Peter three times, Do you love me? you know, and I said, Well, you know, I’m still pursuing that waterpark project, and he said, Oh my goodness, tell me about that. So I started telling him about it. And it didn’t take me long to get excited about telling people about it. And then he said, Then he asked this great question. I’ll never forget this. He said, Why are you gonna pay for it? And I said, I have no idea.

Jordan
Practical question.

Randy
Yeah. And he said, Guys, let me help you with that. And I was like, Oh, so like a week or two went by and I penned this long letter about a What did that meant? What did that mean at the time? because we then got interrupted by our kids, they were, you know, we set a big Christmas event and all the families were there. We were having a really good time. And so he responded, yeah, I want to help you. So he became my partner. Her brother is a great friend. He’s a great man. He’s a great partner, and he lost about four years ago, now, four years ago he lost his battle to leukemia. So, so I maybe I’m getting ahead, but that’s a little bit about ourselves so that he was very instrumental in helping us get this funded. You know, we, we had some people we knew who were willing to invest in, he had more people that he knew that were willing to invest in. Yeah, so that’s how we got Raging Waves off the ground.

Dawn
And you have to understand in 2006, seven, economy was a lot better. It was easier to get money it was nowadays I don’t know that we could get the money. But this actually started out as him in an office warehouse, saying, I want to get out of here. What I need some sort of idea of what to do and he raced cars before. So he said, let’s let’s open a little go kart track. That’d be fun, when that’d be fun. And then the more we’re researching that, let’s put a little mini golf on it. That’d be cool. And then people are like, you know, they do those waterslide things. Now you should do that, like put a water slide. This was in the 80s. So water parks were very new. So put a waterslide there to along with your go kart near and then it evolved into luscious do the waterpark, and then that’s kind of how, and then every year we grow a little bit.

Randy
Yeah, I was very frustrated with life, you know, realizing that I was in a good it was a good job, you know, it’s a good job. And I just was like, you know, oh my goodness, I remember thinking at the time, oh my goodness, I’m gonna be 35 years old, and what am I done with my life? And I know we were talking a little about that earlier, you know, just a few minutes ago, and you had mentioned about, like, what, what are we doing, you know what I mean? What what’s gonna define your life, you know, and

Jordan
I think that’s one of the things we especially wanted to ask you about because I feel like a lot of people can take a look at a career and it pays the bills. But there’s I think something more that people want. But it’s difficult to take that leap. Like how do you how do you leave the sure and comfortable thing for the adventure? So at what point did that transition for you from just this, this feeling to something you’re starting to take concrete steps?

Randy
Yeah. Well, I was in working that job and realizing that – I’m not proud to admit this – but in working that job, and being in my little office, I realized I was working more on my dream than I was on the job. And at the time, I, you know, didn’t really think a whole lot about that, you know, wasn’t really convicted of that. I, I guess the table’s turned because if I had employees now doing that here, I you know, I probably wouldn’t take too kindly to that, you know, but, um, yeah, so then I just realized I needed more time to pursue this and, and I was…

Jordan
…Like a hobby or a passing interest at the time or were, you know.

Randy
it was great. Was it gonna happen? Yeah, it Well, I didn’t know if it was going to happen. But I knew that I was going to pursue it to to the nth degree. I knew that…

Rosanna
So if it didn’t happen you knew it’s because you’ve done everything you could to try and make it happen and then if the answer is no then…

Randy
And that was exactly it. And even then, we we got a lot of nose. And we had a lot of naysayers. And we had some, and people like, you know, question my sanity, so to speak, you quit a job and you don’t have a job. And now you’re going to pursue this and you have no idea where it’s going. And I’m like, yeah, that’s that’s what we’re going to do. So, so we did that. So it was not without risk, but I thought the risk was always mitigated in that I was always going to work. I like Dawn said, and I don’t want I don’t want to make this sound haughty. But I can work. I can. I just know I would do something, you know. I wasn’t going to sit back and just let this come to me. So then like I said, we made the decision I was miserable at the time. When I was in that job I was absolutely miserable. I’ve heard people talk about they get that forget what they call it the debt 4:30-5:00 o’clock feeling on Sunday evening when it’s like, oh, crap, I gotta go back to work. I all my goodness, my mood, she would always tell me man I can I can always tell by the clock when it’s four o’clock on Sunday, you know? Oh, my goodness, and it was terrible. And I was just miserable. So and I just couldn’t get past the fact like, This is my life. This isn’t what I’m supposed to do. You know, you just have this desire, you know, much like yourselves, much like you had mentioned earlier, you have this burning thing within you that like, kind of do something, you know, even if it’s wrong, I gotta go do something, you know. And so, so that’s when it got really serious. We really started pursuing we started jumping on planes, like I’d mentioned earlier, visiting other parks, getting to meet other people then getting to meet the owners, you know, and that again, I’m repeating myself, forgive me That was really key is when we could meet those owners and they could look at our numbers and look at our projections and say, Yeah, you’re either full of beans or Yeah, you’re you’re, you’re pretty close or spot on.

Jordan
You can get this off the ground. This might actually work.

Randy
And that was what was really helpful. I was gonna say when you had mentioned in 2006 2005, we started talking to people. And why this be hard sell today, I’ll tell you that, especially everything what’s going on in the world today, but even a couple years ago, this would be a really hard sell, but we’d walk into meetings with investors and quite honestly, we were told Yes, more times than No. So that was really, really encouraging, you know, so, yeah, we just started putting that plan together started making it work.

Dawn
99% of the time, the investors would say to you, we’re investing in you Randy not the dream because his passion, not the waterpark, we’re investing in you because his passion was so high. You know, you can tell just talking to him. His passion is so high still, but especially back then. So he really portrayed that. And I think also for me as far as supporting him through all this, there was many times where I was like, I you’re still doing this, like, come on, like, get on to something else, you know, and, and I thought I never want him to be 60 and look back and say, I wonder if I could have had that part of my wife want to stop me. And I never want to be the reason for that, you know.

Rosanna
And I think that’s interesting in a marriage. I mean, him and I are similar in a lot of ways, but also very different. And I would say like you like, I have, like my own set of opinions. And I’m pretty strong willed and I’m smart, and I’m intelligent. And so like, Yeah, not submission isn’t always the first word on my plate. So sometimes when we are considering something new, it’s kind of like this. You know, it’s a dialogue. It’s a conversation about what he thinks and what I think and he’s an eternal optimist, and I will tell you all the reasons why they don’t work. So it’s interesting to hear like, yes, this was Randy’s dream and I said, Okay, and that maybe it doesn’t always have to be both people dream or vision but the support of the other partners.

Dawn
I think the Lord will honor that. I can tell real quick story Randy served million times. My thing is always I want to work with kids, I want to like be like a youth director and counselor and really work with kids and, and then 10 years later, I’m here at this waterpark. And I’m like, I’m doing nothing like, this is his dream. I’ve worked like 20 years of our marriage on his dream, like, what am I ever going to get what I want to do, right? And then I was just feeling down. And I was really praying about it. And our wind our window, our office windows kind of above the park, and I looked out, it was we’re open. I look out the window. And I clearly heard the Lord say to me, I have given you 500 kids that work for you every summer. What more do you want from me? And I thought, Oh, yeah, he’s giving me my dream too but in a whole different way. So I’m not saying I’m a minister to these kids or whatever but I like to encourage them and I like to support them you know try to make their teenage years better. So in that way it’s like both of our kind of dreams came true through this although we were really pursuing his dream and the whole time but again I really feel that Lord is your time and your your partnership with each other. So we work very well together.

Randy
Yeah, I do want to say and forgive me I may be jumping ahead on that well, thank you. I do want to say that her brother died and and it was kind of one of the things that Scott did so well is he took care of everything outside the gates you know, legal this, Investor Relations, you know, banking things, all that kind of stuff. Well, suddenly and and my deal was I take care of everything inside this. I like I know how to make this place – I don’t say this the right way – I know how to make this place look amazing. I know how to lay it out. I know, I just, I know how to do that. So all of a sudden Dawn is thrust into this role when Scott dies and she has been, she’s wonderful and I like I told her the other day, it’s so cool to brag about her. Because it’s true. You know, you can only fabricate a brag you can only fabricate boast for so long. And then all sudden, it’s like, even i’m not buying this, you know. But she is really, really, really good at running this business way, way better than I am.

Dawn
I am way way outside my comfort zone. But I feel the Lord just gives me what I need.

Randy
She has done a tremendous job assuming a lot of the roles that Scott did and and we’ve all grown into it. I myself have had to grow into some of those roles as well too.

Jordan
One of the things that we want to ask you to in going back to the beginning like what are what are some of the things that you had to learn along the way to make it a reality?

Dawn
Probably a shorter conversation to say what we did know. Yeah. Now looking back, Now looking back, we’re very naive. Like, really looking back at this, people would say we’re a little crazy. A lot of people said we were crazy at the time.

Rosanna
But does anybody who ever has any kind of success? Does that mean to say, Oh, yeah, they played it safe or like, isn’t that like, everybody’s like, they’re crazy. And that’s the reason why it works right? If you count all the things you don’t know you’ll never move from the sideline. So all right, now figure it out.

Dawn
And it was hard because a lot of people thought we were crazy. So sometimes it’s it’s hard to feel like you almost alienates certain people, but you get to a point do you want this to work? What’s the you know how worth it is it to you? Things like that. So, one thing I will say Oh, about us working together, I always say, because people are like, I could never work with my husband, like, I don’t understand how you guys do that. And we actually like working together, and we have a good time working together. But I always said from the very beginning, he’s very respectful of me, and what I can do and what I can contribute to the business. And that’s huge because a lot of men want their wives to work for them, and just do your job, and I make all the decisions. And that doesn’t work. It doesn’t work, you have to have the respect. You have to have and I have to feel respected. And you know, and so that really helps me to Okay, yeah, you know what, that’s outside my comfort zone, but I can do it because he believes in me and and, you know, we just gotta make this work together because he can’t do it all on his own. Not that he’s not capable, but it’s like it’s too much.

Randy
I think that was one of the good lessons we learned to was that one of the questions say, Yeah, what we have learned is is to deligate you know, there was so many times I just like, you know, you just want this I always tell people, I know this isn’t Disney World, I know that. But it’s my Disney World. You know. So you want every little detail. And it’s hard to get everybody on that same to get everybody to hop on board that train. It’s like, and the staff here does a tremendous job they really do. But it’s just you realize that you start learning to choose your battles. And then one of the other good lessons I would say, too, is we we trusted people – and this sounds cynical and I don’t mean it to be that way, nor do I want it to be that way – but we put too much trust in people.

Dawn
Certain people, yeah, at the beginning.

Randy
Yeah, that was really hard.

Dawn
But then the pendulum swings where you don’t trust anybody. Right so that’s hard.

Rosanna
Yeah, too much. Yeah. should also probably just not right for a marriage or for business.

Dawn
Yeah. That’s difficult or maybe he’ll be like, No, he’s a good guy. And I’m like, No, he’s not. You know. You know, that’s that’s kind of that was kind of difficult. But yeah, as far as like the yin and yang where that’s that’s really us. I work more with the people with the employees, Randy’s better off working just on the grounds and making this thing we always say people always say we’re like, Walt and Roy Disney. I don’t know how much you know that story, but he’s our Walt, he has the vision and he sees all this and what it can be, and this will be amazing. And I’m like, Okay, how are we gonna pay for this? Yeah, so that’s, that’s kind of how we work together. And he’s really, really good at what he does. And, and I’m working on what I do.

Jordan
So kind of building off of that we’re looking at, you said, like a lot of married couples don’t like to work together. And that’s one thing we’ve talked about too. Like, what if we looked at the same place? How would that go? But you you obviously do that and it’s working very well for you guys. So how do you how do you balance that with also like, being being married and enjoying that relationship and enjoying the family side of things?

Randy
Well, I think for me, I mean, I won’t speak for you on this but I think that’s just how it that’s how it makes it work. You know, the I mean, the marriage I don’t know that we have clear lines of delineation between marriage and work I mean, we work together our – yeah, I guess it’s easy to say but our work relationship is good. And our marriage relationship is probably stronger than ever.

Rosanna
And earlier when you said when you took the hour to and from your house that you you always came into work together and left together and you would just talk the whole way like, it definitely like warmed my heart because like right after a long day and work but like you’re still in the same car, going home together. Like I think that speaks volumes to 34 years of marriage and to a wife who supports a husband’s dream and to a husband who has a vision and then you know, going home and having dinner. Yeah.

Dawn
And I think that our also gave us that time to just decompress. And, and we’ve learned over the years that he when things happen, he needs to talk about them, he needs to go through them, he needs to revisit them. And then when I have a stressful day, I’m like, Don’t talk to me, I just want to go, let’s go have dinner. Let’s just talk about something else, you know, and so and then the tomorrow I’ll probably process it and, and so that we’ve just learned that about each other right and allowed ourselves that. Now moving out here so close has been nice because there’s certain things in my life, the older I get especially that I need to function in my day, I don’t need to be here 20 hours a day like he likes to be so. I need to get up early in the morning I need to journal and I need to read and I need to have that quiet time. And that preps me for the day. If I come in rushing in and I don’t have a good day by about two o’clock in the afternoon. I’m like, You know what? I didn’t have I didn’t journal this morning. I didn’t have quiet time. No wonder I’m having a sucky day. You know. And so but he’s really that’s not his thing. That’s not how he gets built up and that’s not how he took for him to sit and quiet and journal and all that. He’d be like can we go now. Yeah. But that’s he again the respect he respects that I need that time. And also the older we get. I am working less. I mean the summer I work 60 hours a week if I need to, and I love it. But definitely in the off season, I do work less hours and that’s been really helpful for me. He still wants to work the 60 hours a week all year long, and that’s great for him.

Rosanna
It’s about knowing each other and what you guys need to help the yin and the yang of it all.

Dawn
Yeah, but but trust me like I have Wednesday’s off in the summer. Only Wednesday. We get one day a week off. And we work all weekend. And then there’s been we all take turns. The managers whichever day that we take off. I have Wednesday. And somebody once said to me, Randy should take Wednesday too. And I was like, No, no, no, no, no. We shouldn’t both have the same Yeah, that would be terrible for the business, right? And in my mind, I’m like, No, I need that. My daddy to go get my nails done. And so that so having that time apart is also really good. And he’s so great about like, you need to get away with your girlfriends, you need to take these weekend trips you need to go you know, so that he’s super gracious about that. And that’s very helpful for me.

Rosanna
Are there any like other dreams like in the middle of this? Have you come up with like other like, scenarios or projects or like, you know what else we should do? We should do this well, or are you like, you know what, this is the dream and it’s okay to have one dream and be all in.

Randy
Yeah, I think that, you know, if you would have asked me that five years ago, you’d get a different answer. Today, it’s just this is it. Yeah, this is it. We there’s still a lot of room for growth here. There’s still a lot of room. There’s still a lot more potential here. As far as you know, hitting attendance numbers. And hitting revenue numbers and the total build out of the park and what attractions what what the latest and greatest attractions we’d like to put in. But yeah, I think this is pretty much it. This, the people, you would be surprised. I mean, a lot of people say, Oh, it’s a waterpark, we get this, we get this 99% of the time, I had no idea this place was that big. This to me is the equivalent of trying to maintain about 30 to 40 homes. Now, whether that’s an accurate number or not, I don’t know. But people would not believe I mean, we have 90 days we have a 90 day season and Memorial Day to Labor Day season. People would not believe the amount of work and effort and go that goes into this to keep this thing going year round.

Rosanna
We came here this first summer that you opened. Jordan and I were married. We’ve probably been married two years. No kids. We came with my brothers also not married at the time. We drove up here. We were so excited. He actually got a speeding ticket on the way. We got here we spent the day and I remember coming and it did not look like this at all. It’s very different. There was some cement and some mulch. And there was I remember like the Twisted Sister like there was like a big tall one over there. Yeah, the lazy river there’s probably like three or four big slides and the lazy river. And then the next time we came back because of having kids and then being little was last summer, so our oldest was nine. Our youngest was one. Yeah, I was telling Randy, we came with the intention of we’ll see how long they last. You know, there’s a big age difference. So who knows? Got here when it opened stayed until it closed, they didn’t want to leave. And I was like, just to see how much it’s grown in that amount of time. And then when I also look out, we’re sitting at the top of, you know, a tower right now and you see all the open land around us right now. I was like, wow, yeah.

Dawn
One of the things that we love about the this industry is you see grandma and grandpa with a little kids. You see mom and dad, you know, with the kids, and it’s something that everyone, there’s something for everyone to do here. You know, grandma and grandpa think there’s nothing for them to do. And they spend half the day on the lazy river and it’s best. I heard a little boy the other day, last year, I was serving him a drink. And he said, this has been the best day of my life. And he’s like, seven, you know, I’m like, Oh, that’s awesome. What was your favorite part? He was I got to spend the whole day with my dad. And Dad’s not on his phone, because he’s in the water. And it’s like, this is it was an amazing day for him that he had his dad’s attention all day.

Jordan
So this was something that struck me when we looked at that video that you have on your website can put out like the vision of the park and I think on the surface level, you can say like, it’s a waterpark, people come to have a good time. But especially as you bring up family, like I know, isn’t that like there’s there’s more of a value and a vision that’s built into what you’re trying to accomplish?

Randy
Yeah, it really is. Yeah, really. I mean, this society. I mean, it’s tough. Now, you know, we we don’t need We get into that but, you know, the family structure gets pulled apart. Every on every, every, every corner, every corner of that family structures getting pulled apart. And we did we thought this would be a great place to just, you know, get that escape get that, you know, get just get away for a day. You know I remember when funny story when we were planning the theming of the park and theming. The budget for theming is a bottomless pit and we have an Australian theme here. And we carry that out the best we can the best our checkbook allows us to. You know, so is it universal? Is it Disney? theming? No, of course not. But we carry that out best but somebody suggested to me. Oh, why don’t you Why don’t you do like a nice Illinois prairie thing.

Dawn
I said, Are you kidding?

Randy
Anybody in Illinois doesn’t want to be

we want to try to make them feel like they’re somewhere else don’t escape. Yeah. So that you know, so you try it. All in that short little story I said, you tie that all into, yeah, you want to bring the families here, you want to give them a place to be together and just have that great, memorable day. I think we accomplished that we do it every time. No, of course not, you know, but I think we really, really do accomplish that, you know. So, we, you know, we do everything with the families in mind here, everything from the rides, we choose to, you know, food and all those decisions. We’re always asking, like, how does this work in the family structures, you know, always,

Dawn
always, always forefront of all our decisions. And plus, we had our kids working with us always from that when they were little they were visiting all the waterparks with us, that would be cool dad, we have pictures of my son’s drawings of what a cool waterpark, this would be. And so he

so he’s been involved in design almost, you know, and now he’s,

Jordan
yeah, well,

Randy
yeah. board he is thrilling is on our board. And he he really does. He has incredible ideas he has, you know, and he, he’s good and not really good.

Rosanna
Although he doesn’t stems from even just your interest early on and just being open with your kids about like what you were doing in the process, right like that there was that natural, like, you know, wanting to learn and curiosity and that like something that developed, you know, behind the scenes, I think a long time. I think you hit it spot on. I think you I think you nailed it.

Randy
Yeah. Yeah. They were included every step of the way. I mean, we would have meetings and people would be like, kids are guys, okay. They hear everything. We’re gonna talk numbers, okay. They hear they hear everything. They were, I mean, they got on planes with us. They got you know, it took me a while being the knucklehead that I am, it’s like, drag the whole family out, and we’d visit these theme parks. And then I realized, you know, like, we weren’t doing the theme parks. We were just investigating the theme parks and I’m like, wait a minute. I think they’d have a lot more fun. If they They can do them and I’ll go investigate them. So, you know, I learned that probably not as quick as I should pretty quickly, but not as quick as I should have. But I think then it became a lot of fun for them. We Yeah, it’s great story. We went out to a park on the East Coast, and I called the guy the owner got to know me, sir. Very good, man. I really love that man. And I said, Hey, I’d like to come visit your park. And he said, Well, you know, we close in a couple of weeks about the middle of August and where I could meet you down at I app at that convention in November. And he said, What are you thinking? And I said, Well, I think I’m standing in your parking lot with my family. I’m here. Oh, my goodness. Hold on. So he was he came and just rolled out the red carpet and the kids had their own little escort for the day. He has a beautiful park out in, in New Hampshire, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And yeah, and they and they really got into that they really so I, I go into this meeting with him. Just to tell To him, and he’s he was so instrumental in looking at numbers and like, Hey, you guys are this and that and, and all of a sudden Sterling, who the heck was he nine years old at the time? He’s like, Dad, can I come in that meeting? I looked at the man I was meeting with and I said, Okay, sure, you know, it’s all family. We’re family here too. So, yeah, so anyway, that’s a long winded response to what you nailed earlier is Yeah, he just grew up with that. And he, and we, we got him involved, and we gave him ownership of that. And, you know, and yeah, as you do with a lot of kids, they’ll hand you something. Oh, that’s beautiful. It’s really nice. But, you know, we encourage him, but I’m telling you something. A lot of what he handed me was like, wow, we can incorporate that you know, layout and ride paths and, and walkways and things like that and location and I’m like, Oh my goodness. Yeah, one then we Yeah, we Where did you come up with?

Dawn
Fast forward to graduates college and moves away? And he’s like, I can’t believe she only signed to come work for us. Like, seriously? Yeah, he did this for them. And then they don’t want to sound like, you gotta let them go. Maybe he’ll come back. Maybe he won’t. You gotta let them go. He has to pursue his own thing. You don’t want him here miserable. So sure enough, he went away. And he lives in Austin still. And, but he calls every day in the summers especially. And he’s like, how do we do today? How do we do today? You know, he really cares. And then he he has now a great perspective, from an outside view, to what we do hear, and has great suggestions from like, Oh, yeah, we wouldn’t have seen that. If he was here right on top of it all the time. Right. And then tell him the story of what he did with you one day when he was in town. took it to the tower.

Randy
Oh, yeah. Well, that one will kind of make me cry. So I’ll do my best. Yeah. So um, it was hard. So we built this place. It was hard. Yeah, he couldn’t believe it was hard like,

Dawn
yeah, fast forward to the talent. Okay.

Randy
So, okay, well, it’s hard to fast forward to it without really expressing how hard it was. But I don’t need to go into the examples of how hard but I will give you one, like, death threats. Like we had to get the kids out of the house. Like we had to move the kid. We had to get the kids out of the house structure. Yeah, construction. Oh, and people money, you know?

Dawn
Yeah, I gotta wait trusting people to be paying. And it didn’t happen. Yeah. So they lied on sworn statements. So now, the contracts are coming after us or their instruction. Yeah.

Randy
So we get a call one night very threatening. And obviously it got our attention how serious it was. I wasn’t going to find out, you know, right away to find out. So yeah. So it was really really hard right. And so because of that, I started really bemoaning this, you know, I started like,

walk around here. I wish this place was still a cornfield. I wish this was silicon. Oh,

I never would have done it. And I and

and I was so wrong to do that I was so wrong to have that mindset because God really did God God gave us gave me the desires of my heart here and, and he made it work, you know, and we got through it and things aren’t great, you know, especially now with this year, we don’t know what we’re facing now with this year.

But things are okay. You know, we made a go of it, you know. And

I was, you know, it was a couple years ago, he come up, come up here, dad, and we walked to the top of PJs, and we walked all the way up there. And he said, and I guess I have to be careful on this. Well, I’ll just tell you what he said. And then you can edit it,

Unknown Speaker
and you got to stop your pitch. You just

Randy
got to stop moaning, complaining, bitching about this all the time. Look what you’ve done. And you and we looked over it and man, there was just tears coming down my eyes and he had his arm around me. So look what you did. You took a cornfield, but what you did you know, and yeah, and it put it in good perspective. And from that moment on, I stopped bemoaning the fact I started like, yeah, thank you God, you know, thanks. You know, it was hard, harder than I ever imagined it would be ever couldn’t never have thought it would be this hard, but, you know, look what we did you know. So when you were it was really? Yeah, sorry. No, that was really a cool moment that was from my son. It was like, you know, like, I should have been imparting that wisdom as a father to my son and my son is imparting

Rosanna
almost more beautiful because yeah, you know, you know, the, the mass of the teacher becomes the master. Yeah, vice versa, you know that Yeah, he’s watched you every step of the way. And he sees that even when you don’t and I think that sometimes we forget we think it’s going to be easy, or because we see what someone else has built. We don’t see any of the struggles you just see like the dream and then the end result right like, yeah, 12 years. But like yeah, I don’t know what’s happened the last 12 to get you here. So it looks like it was easy and it’s

Dawn
Yeah, people are like, Oh my gosh, you want raging waves I’m like, well

that’s okay.

Our our dream now is really just to buy a small motor home and travel around. And, and one of my dreams has always been to write a book. And I really feel I want to write a book about this place. Like the troubles that we’ve had here have been insurmountable, but God has been so faithful, so faithful. And just the stories of how he worked all this out. Even last year. June was rainy and wet. And we have talked about that. We’ve basically been open till July 1, because it was terrible, the weather, and we’re just every day looking at your managers trying to be like, positive and encouraging and uplifting and inside, you’re like, I hate this. This sucks. We’re never gonna make it Then I said, but you know, the cool thing is gonna be I told them at the beginning of this or in June, we’re gonna turn around in September and we’re gonna look at this year, and we’re gonna say, look what God did to bring us through. And what and the end of last year, the very last day, we surpassed our highest attendance stuff. Yeah. Oh my god.

Randy
We got a Yeah.

Dawn
So and then this year attended, some

Randy
are our highest revenue. So yeah.

Dawn
And then this year, we’re like, okay, we’re ready. This is gonna be an amazing year. We got to run new parking. We’re all set attendance is you know, we’re trending. This is going to be an amazing summer. And then COVID happens and Coronavirus, and it’s like now we can’t even open and it’s like, God, are you sure you have a plan here somewhere? Like yesterday, I’m journaling and I’m right, Lord, I’m writing here. I know you’re faithful. I know you’re gonna bring us through. I know this is gonna be amazing. But in my heart, I’m not feeling it right now. But I’m gonna write this and I’m gonna. I’m gonna believe I do believe it. But I have no idea how it’s gonna happen. And I hope my heart follows me soon, you know. So it’s just, it’s been hard times, but boy, I think, like you said, and bringing the marriage, hard times can bring you closer together, we’ve we’ve weathered these storms together, you know, all we had sometimes was each other. And so you get stronger and you commit to each other. It’s a commitment. You’re gonna commit to get through it together. And there’s hard days, and we would sometimes argue all the way home, you know, to try not to argue in front of the guys, but it’s like, I don’t agree with how you did that. And he’d be like, wow. So we and we fight well, also. So we don’t agree on a lot of things. But it’s, it’s okay. That can

Rosanna
make you sharper. Well, one of the Jordans big phrases with us is like, Okay, if we do this, what’s the worst thing that could happen? And so like, for him, it’s always like very small, and I’m like, well, we could not have money and we’d have to sell our house would you have to probably live with my parents? Yeah. And then we’d all be there. together. He’s like, and really, if you think about it, is that the worst? Like, is that really? What I was like? Oh, I mean, you might fail you sit, you know, might not be as proud as you want to be. But like other than He’s like, see? So like, why not? Why not just jump in? Exactly.

Jordan
So what advice would you guys have to other people who kind of were in your position like 1215 years ago who you know, they haven’t. They have a dream and idea, but haven’t done anything kind of reports. Yeah. What would you tell that person?

Unknown Speaker
No regrets? Yeah, no regrets.

Randy
Yeah, to try to support each other. I’m sorry. I’m trying to I’m trying to break this into like,

let me tell you this real quickly, and I’ll get back to this. I’m not good at this. But I promise I’ll get back to it. So a group of guys came out here from Las Vegas, five, six years ago, and that was when I was like, I wish this was still a cornfield. It’s so hard, you know, and this is And they came out here all wide eyed and starry eyed and that like, just like I was, you know, 15 years ago. And they said, Yeah, we’re gonna do this and we got X number of million dollars. And you know, they wanted to see this. I mean, they got on a plane landed O’Hare just to come to raging waves to see this just to come meet me. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I don’t know if I made a mistake at the time or not. But I I told them. I said, don’t do it. Oh, no, no, no, we’ve got I said, that’s not enough. What do you mean, we got? We got, you know, millions. Not enough. Don’t do it. And I thought, ah, who am I to quash somebody’s stream? You know, now they did it. And they lost it. So, so how does that answer your question? So I’m trying to separate. Like, if somebody came to me and said the waterpark, don’t do it. But Doing a business doing some kind of a partnership where the husband and wife are going to be together? Really, you got to first and foremost, you got to really, it sounds silly. It’s not silly, you got to really have a deep rooted love for one another. You really do. I didn’t always express that I always had it. I just didn’t always express it and all that I always knew how to express it to be quite honest. But you have to have a deep rooted love in it and incredible respect for one another. And you just gotta you just got to be so resolute to work through it together. You know? if, if, if you’re if you’re all in, you know, hey, what’s the worst that could happen? If you’re like, well, if you got two hours, I’ll tell you. You know, I don’t think that’s a recipe for success. I don’t if you’re all in and she’s half in. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. Now. If you’re all in and she’s all in but she’s the voice of reason. And you’re the dreamer. We have here that could work you know You balance each other, you know, she’ll ground you, you’ll ground her, you know, you’ll, you’ll envision things that are greater than maybe what she thought. But she’ll rein you in when you when you reach too high kind of thing like that. So that would be the advice, great respect, great, great devotion, great love for one another. And, and you gotta be you gotta really be like minded like, Hey, this is going to work, you know, maybe it’s not going to work the way exactly it looks to you. Or maybe it’s not going to work the way exactly it looks to you. But together it’s going to work the way it’s supposed to look at and, and then it works. That makes sense. Yeah, by saying that, I

Dawn
would say also Family First, you have to put your family first, even though it’s really really hard sometimes. That’s in the end when all this has gone. That’s what you have to have your family family first. And one mistake I think we did make and it wasn’t intentional at all. It was just because of the nature of this and we very often felt we weren’t understood. As we lost a lot of friends in the process, because people don’t understand what we’re going through. Now, actually, a lot of them have kind of come back in our life and like, we’ve missed you all these years, you know, like, we’ve missed you. So it’s more of me reaching out, like, Hey, we hadn’t seen each other in so long. 10 years. And you just, you get those back. But I think we sacrificed a lot of friendship, to do this. And I don’t know that that was wise, because we probably should have had that support.

Randy
Yeah, but let’s be honest, that was mostly my fault. That was my I just got so absorbed into this thing. And when things got hard, I just, you know, for me when things got hard, you know, I worked hard when things get hard, you work harder, and then you just keep her and then you work yourself to where I mean,

Rosanna
I don’t know how earlier you said that your your brother in law asked you how are you? Oh, I’m good. You know, it’s it’s easier to say that I’m good and everything’s fine then to tell you, I really don’t want to do this job anymore. I have this vision and run things and like

Randy
I was I, I want to say I was a life of the party kind of guy, but I was very outgoing. And that was hard

Dawn
for my kids too. That was hard for the kids because Ellie was like, we couldn’t leave church until everyone laughed, because Randy was talking to everybody, right? And now it’s like, he doesn’t talk to anybody. And he’s just kind of in the background. And he was gregarious, and like the life of the party, and this and that, and it kind of sucked the life out of them a bit that so many people you’re hanging with, like, what are you doing? Like, this has been enough, Randy, you know, like, stop, stop all this nonsense. Let’s get back to work in the office. And, and that was oftentimes, I was like, quite sure where she worked at IBM and just had a regular paycheck and regular insurance and, you know, it’d be a whole lot easier. But, so that was hard, but definitely family first is my big advice. Yeah.

Randy
Yeah. The front thing know that. Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah, I have regrets about that. I really do. Yeah, I just, I didn’t handle it. Well, I didn’t know how to handle it. You know, I mean, what’s the draining when you’re just flat out Bro, excuse me, sir, when you’re just flat broke, and you’re just, you know, and you know everything you envisioned it and it’s not turning out the way you want it to and you know, and all this and that and it’s like I, I don’t know, I don’t know where the rulebook where the instruction booklet is for that, like how to handle that, and I didn’t handle it well, I didn’t I just I did I shut myself off, I worked and worked and worked more, because I just thought, you got to work through this, you know, and, you know, I, I don’t have to hire that person and that person, I’ll just keep working. And that’s, that’ll save us money. And then we you

Dawn
know, now we have amazing managers, they could run this place without us. So we’ve gotten to that point where they care as much as we do. And they they’re amazing. And so that’s that’s been great. Yeah.

Randy
So true.

Rosanna
It took a while to get there right, because no one else is JB right. You don’t want your kids to move away. You don’t want Yeah,

Randy
it did. That’s a great point. Great point. Yeah, it was like it was hard to let go of things and then you realize that you know, you want to do Everything and pretty soon you realize you’re not, you know, you’re good at some things, you’re not good at everything and then you’re when you’re trying to do everything. You’re just plain not good. Yeah, you know, we sacrifice

Dawn
things like our home. Like we bought a starter house when we got married, we’re gonna be in it for five years. 30 years later we sold it because we got to a point where are we going to build a house? Or are we going to stay in this house and build a waterpark? Are we gonna end you realize why I pretty much don’t have a mortgage now sure would be nice. Why do I want to start over with a mortgage, we got this waterpark to build. So in that sense, we sacrificed you know, living in that small little house for that long. But it’s all on how you make it right when my kids went to a nice high school. They all had rich families, rich homes. They always were at our house. And I’m like it just goes to show you it’s just the atmosphere of the house. It’s the relaxing, it’s the letting them do what they want. It’s not Do I have the fanciest pool table and rec room and pool and all that. So just

Randy
Yeah, well, we did it.

Dawn
Sacrifice but on the other hand, we have amazing memories. My kids have great memories and they appreciate now what they have. Because they grew up in a little house and we shared a bathroom and they, you know, they they saw the sacrifices that we made firsthand. We didn’t try to hide anything. And and I think that’s taught them a lot in their life now. In growing up and pursuing things just a year ago, our daughter came to us and gave us this proposal about how and she graduated, she went into marketing, she left you know, our business and then again, just let her go. She came back a year later or last year and said, Your biggest investment are your water slides and everything here in the park and your second biggest investment are your employees. You have 500 of them in the summer. You don’t have time to really invest in them. I think you should hire me as a director of employee development, and she’s got a great personality for it and she is just really here and she’s just like building into these kids and they want to be here with her and all that, you know. And so that was an investment for us. And it was she had to earn her way back. And she had come to us with a proposal and say, you know, this is what I think we should do. And this is how it will work out. And she’s got a great attitude like that. So they come back.

Randy
Yeah, it was pretty cool. Yeah, really was. Yeah.

Jordan
What’s next for reaching waves? What’s next for the width?

Randy
Well, what’s next is I’d like to well in the here and now. Yeah, yeah, getting through here. Now we have a brand new ride being built as we speak over there. We’re really excited right now. It’s one of three in the world. So we’re excited for that. We’re really excited to roll that out. So yeah, just keep improving the place and yeah, and and just we just got to get through this. I think a lot of times you hear about, I think we talked about this earlier about, you know, trying to understand everything what’s going on in the world right now, you know, trying to understand what when people say it’s the new normal. I heard a guy say no, no, no, it’s not the new normal. It’s just an interim normal. I said, Okay, I can buy that interim normal. But are you telling me for the rest of our lives? We’re supposed to never shake a man’s hand again. Are you telling me we’re supposed to say six feet away from people and physical distance? A word, you know, for that?

Rosanna
Yeah, your business is more about just a waterside. It’s about it’s about people coming together and really is your park it’s not it’s not that your slides aren’t running or that your staff isn’t here. It’s that people are not coming together in a safe place where they get away from it. Yeah. All and and find what’s really important, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Randy
Well, no, well said yeah, I just yeah, so what’s what’s next what’s the next thing for us is just Yeah, for right now, it’s we we got to get through this, you know, and I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know what that’s gonna look like. We just got to get through this. And We got to keep making this place got to keep believing in this place you know we have we continue to maintain it we continue to keep it beautiful you know we’re we’re pumping the brakes on everything like you know we don’t know do we fill pools do we not you know kind of thing like that we are going ahead with the construction of the new ride because that’s got to be done you know it’s not going to do any buddy any good to let that just sit there for a year if that happens and then pick it up again so we made the decision let’s just get that done yeah so in the here and now it’s just continue to invest in this invest in the people invest in you know, our business here make it the best we can continue to grow. I’m telling you, we were on a good trend. Yeah, like you said earlier on. We were We were really trending up. So that was you know, we were really, really pleased with that. So probably

Dawn
our next step two is really quite honestly at our age would be ultimately the cell and and by motorhome Just be together and hang out and not worry about work.

Randy
Yeah, I don’t see that. That’s not happening anytime.

But I do tell you it’s it gets more appealing.

I mean, you talk about, you know, from a Christian perspective, you know, this isn’t morbid. I’m not going there. You know, who knows? You know, we’re not guaranteed tomorrow, right? But boy with everything that’s going on right now, man eternal Russ sounding better every

Unknown Speaker
day. Oh, yes.

Dawn
We also had some health scares, and Randy had cancer here. So no, and it’s just like, you know, got through a great and

Randy
yeah, and it’s full remission. Right. But

Dawn
again, it gives you a little bit of perspective perspective. Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan
So one of my favorite stories from our visit last year was, is this the boomerang? Yeah. Rosanna takes our two oldest boys. They were not And six at the time. Oh, and she did she just gets him on. We’re gonna do this right? Like, oh, okay, what is it? Like Don’t worry about it. I don’t think you ever

Rosanna
told her to just get in until they start seeing it. I guess they’re looking over and they’re like,

Jordan
yeah, you can see are we doing that? But that’s still like one of the I think, most favorable memories cuz at the time they were they were scared over their minds they’re like we’re gonna do this and then they do it and they’re screaming the whole time and you’re laughing the whole time. But afterwards that just that joy of like we had this rush we had this great experience. And now we want to come back and want to do that again. And they can’t wait till their sister is five now so you know as soon as we can drag her onto it and she’s like

Rosanna
all her hands. Yeah.

Jordan
But it’s certainly we have other stories like that too, just from a single visit. You know, but you this park has certainly done an amazing job of facilitating that space. To I think do what what families are meant to be together and enjoy one another and make some memories along the way.

Rosanna
No phones no screens, no nothing. So yeah, pushed aside and yeah, you know, you don’t even you don’t notice that you’re in the middle of a cornfield. It’s blue skies and Aussie fun and that’s awesome.

Randy
That’s a great place to be so funny you talk about no phones no screens we have this this little thing around here from the Oh nobody told me that department Yeah. Like Yeah,

you dropped your phone in the lazy river if you’re on it, but you know, yeah, phones don’t work good going down these slides you know?

Yeah, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do I What do you want me to do? You’re not supposed to take your phone with you. You know it doesn’t work What can you dry it? No, no, we can oscillate in the

Jordan
sun. Yeah.

Dawn
You know and look at that like your your son’s First of all, it’s like, wow, mom’s Pretty cool, right?

Rosanna
Yeah, dad and I

Dawn
made them made them Brave. They had to be brave to try something I said do you trust me?

Rosanna
Yes. See all the people who went before us? Yes. Did you see anybody fall out? No. Don’t let go. Trust me, just don’t

Dawn
let a good life lesson.

Jordan
Oh, this was a privilege being here with you guys today.

Randy
Thank you Tori.

Jordan
Yeah, I know, we always have a lot that we take away from conversations. Like, if anything, you know, helps us live better, and you know, aspire to be like the people that we’re talking about. Yeah.

Rosanna
Yeah, it was really a great day. It was such a great interview. And the couple was just, I mean,

Jordan
there’s no doubt we could have talked for hours more.

Rosanna
Yeah, they were really fabulous. Just about opening up about Randy’s dream and the dream that he had and how they got it from idea to actual what what exists there now and even just the way over the last 12 years, they’ve developed it. And so what they’ve learned along the way, some of the sacrifices that they’ve had to make maybe some of the regrets that they’ve had the mistakes and

Jordan
yeah, if they could redo things, how might that look?

Rosanna
Yeah, and even some great advice for us. So what we wanted to do is just kind of wrap up two major takeaways that we had from today that I think everything that they discussed with us kind of fell into these two categories. And this hit home for both of us and I know George Jordan really appreciated this about what Randy had to say. Randy said the dream for the waterpark was never Dunn’s dream. It was something that was completely his dream. And she chose to support it.

Jordan
Yeah. And that stood out to me because sometimes, like sometimes afterwards, people could sugarcoat it and say, this is something that we always worked towards, or we envisioned, but right away as long as one of the first things he’s like this, this is always my thing. And she came along with it. She supported him as he pursued something that he was really passionate about. And I feel like it’s, it’s got to be very often like more That way than not and a lot of circumstances where maybe they both end up coming around to, you know, pursuing a particular vision together. But it’s it really was started with Randy It started with one person. And I thought that was really interesting hearing her story of deciding to support that. Because she had a choice, she could stifle it. And then she didn’t want him to be an old man like looking back regretting something that they never tried.

Rosanna
But because she kept him from that, and that was something that she didn’t want to have happen. And so that takeaway is you can either support one another, or you can stifle each other. And I think they credit their 34 years of marriage and working together as business partners and going home together and still loving each other to the fact that she has continued to support him and his dream, and he continues to support her and her dreams and makes her a true partner in the business.

Jordan
Yeah, that’s helped me too. That support wasn’t a one time decision that was, you know, at when they decided just to go for the park, it’s been an ongoing maintenance of recognizing here’s what the other person needs. And I’m going to respect them by giving them that.

Rosanna
And that was another word that they continue to use in their dialogue about their relationship with each other. And in their business relationship, that respect was key, that he always respected her opinion and her honesty, she talked about not being kind of a submissive wife that would just be told what to do where she she wanted to be a part of this decisions. And she would tell him when he made a misstep and tell him why. And so there was that mutual respect and trust of not only are you my partner who supports me, but you’re I respect you because I respect your opinions and your beliefs and the knowledge that you bring to the table.

Jordan
Yeah. And it’s helpful because they can balance one another in that sense. And they speak to them.

Rosanna
Yeah, and they really had a sense of like a yin and a yang, that they both had different skill sets. But and when you put them together, made much more bigger picture. All right. The second thing, and I think there are a lot of parts to it, but I think it has to do with fear, failure and success. It’s kind of all wrapped in that even the path to success is paved with setbacks is paved with second guessing and is paved with struggle. Because they’ll tell you in their, you know, they told us in their story that there were times where, like, you know, they had nothing, they literally had nothing construction loans that were not being paid because of, you know, employees gone wrong. And yeah, you know, just hard times complicated.

Jordan
It’s hard. You’re, yeah, you’re in debt up to your eyeballs. You’re regretting everything. And there’s naysayers along the way. Like there’s there’s a lot of struggle and I think you pointed this out where it’s easy to see the the beginning and the end, and we usually don’t see what it takes to go from one to the other.

Rosanna
Right, you see, oh, Don and Randy, people will tell you they had this dream for, you know, 15 years about this water. apart. And if you go there and you look at it now it’s pristine. And it’s beautiful. And it’s well thought out. And it’s a great place we’ve had fun there. But if you if we didn’t talk to them today, you don’t you don’t see that it went from like this idea to what it is now that there has been a lot of struggle and setback and feelings of fear through audit are normal, that when we all do something new, or try something new, like if you walk into it, and you’re not afraid, like, you’re clearly not pressing the envelope, you’re not looking to grow, you’re just doing more of the same. So like those feelings of fear are normal. And then it’s natural to have moments when you want to give up. And I think we’ve all been there. In many of the domains of our lives, you know, whether it’s family or friendships or careers or hobbies, like things get hard and our first inclination is to wanna just kind of pull up. But I think the difference in going from good to great is that when you’re great, despite the fear, despite the struggle you continue to

Jordan
press on and pursue still that Belief in it. And they, you know, it’s just impressed by the not just the chronology of events, but some of the emotional journey that they shared with us too.

Rosanna
But and then the one thing that they said was through it all, we knew that, regardless of what happened, we would have each other and for them like it was enough, like even if it flopped, even if you know this, we went for we went for it. No regrets. That’s what they said no regrets, and that they wouldn’t do it differently.

Jordan
Yeah. So we certainly learned a lot from that conversation. We hope you did as well. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please subscribe and leave us a five star rating. You can also check us out on our website, the relentless search, excuse me the relentless pursuit podcast.com where you can contact us or read our show notes and leave a response as well. So we’re grateful for you listening and we hope that you enjoyed the show and that you