Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast.

I'm Dirk Durham.

And today, on this episode, I have an old friend and colleague, Mark Benelli. He is considered or known as,

a.k.a. The modern, rural civilian. Welcome to show, Mark. Thank you so much, Derek. I appreciate

you having me. It's good to chat with you. It's been a while. Yeah, it's been a while.

I first met Mark years ago. I think it was

2010 on my first day when I changed careers and went to work at Night Force Optics. And, you know,

always starting a new job, you always have these insecurities and unsettling feelings and what the day may bring or if you like anybody

there or anything. And I met Mark and immediately Mark introduced himself. You want to know all

about me. Where are you from? What do you do? What do you do for fun? What about your family?

And throughout the day, you introduced yourself,

or you introduced me to everyone that came through our work area. Like, hey, hey, did you met Derek?

You know, blah, blah, you know, you like you made me feel at home and welcome to such a degree.

At the end of the day, I went home thinking, man, I've made the right decision.

I'm at a good place here.

And I've always appreciated that.

Thank you, Dirk.

I, it's been so long ago, I, you know, those days were, I was, I was really enjoying myself at night forcing back in the early

days and to get new faces. And I know that you had kind of come to us from sort of a long,

a long career in the tire industry and changing jobs isn't easy. So I like, you know, all the new

folks around there, especially if they had ties to the local area, I thought, you know,

pretty cool to try to welcome them with the most open arms that a guy could offer.

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