S1:EP8 Ray Pulver - Leadership Through Positivity & Creativity

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Jeremy Van Wert: Okay.

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Jeremy Van Wert: So I need to move my

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Jeremy Van Wert: script to the front. Here it is okay.

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The

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Jeremy Van Wert: okay. William, this is take number one.

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Jeremy Van Wert: mindful mutiny, podcast, with Guest, Ray Pulver.

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Jeremy Van Wert: All right. I'll count it in

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Jeremy Van Wert: 5,

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Jeremy Van Wert: 5, 4, 3,

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Jeremy Van Wert: welcome to the mindful mutiny, podcast, I'm your host, Jeremy Van wert CEO therapist and high level coach on mindful mutiny. We thoughtfully rebel against anything that keeps people from attaining their highest potential. You are not going to want to miss today because I have a really unique person on somebody that I've known for a really long time. His name is Ray Pulver, and of all things.

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Jeremy Van Wert: He is a professional parade developer. He puts on parades. He makes those parades happen, and you have no idea how much project management, how much goes into making a parade. It's a really unique kind of person that can do this sort of thing. You've got to have a great positive attitude. You've got to have

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: an incredible set of relationships with many different people. And so today, without further ado, Ray Pulver, thank you so much for being on mindful mutiny. Thanks, Jeremy, so glad to be here.

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Jeremy Van Wert: So

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Jeremy Van Wert: gosh! There's just so much to talk about here. Now, now, can you go through just like

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Jeremy Van Wert: a a like a quick biography. Of what? What is it that you're doing right now? What is? What do you do with parades?

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Sure. So I'm actually founder and owner of upbeat parade productions based here in San Jose, California, we plan, produce, and manage parade productions. We currently work with 23 parades throughout the west coast from Portland, Oregon, all the way down to Palm Springs, over to Las Vegas. I actually have a client in Massachusetts.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: and we're responsible for obtaining all the entries in the parade, working with the city on street closures, detours security. If there's television or media involved, we're involved with that as well. If it's a television production, we work with production agency, the production

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: broadcast of the parade. We write the scripts for the announcers. In some cases we get bleachers and stages and sound equipment for along the parade route. So there's a whole variety of things that we do. But it's basically maintaining parade or managing main parade production.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Okay? So II don't even know how you get into doing something like this. And I know that we're gonna get into it as we talk here. But the wonderful thing about you, Ray, that is just really grown on me over years and years of being a friend of yours is just this infectious positivity, this ability to make something positive about anything. You're just incredible in integrity and everything that it is that you do.

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Jeremy Van Wert: and your ability to really see the bright side and things, and look at what is possible to happen. And and that's been really a theme of the way that you work.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Well, thanks. Yeah. I mean, first off parades are fun, and in in my world parades are fun and exciting. I mean, I've loved parades since I was a kid. truly. Never thought I'd be doing it as a business adventure. But it! That happened 23 years ago when I started the company? But it's just II just think it's a positive fun things for for communities.

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Jeremy Van Wert: So where'd you grow up, Ray?

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I actually grew up on the East coast. I was born in Stanford, Connecticut, and I grew up in western Massachusetts and the beautiful Berkshire hills where it's fall there now, and the leaves are turning all sorts of colors which I miss that time time of year. But I then moved out here to California. In the mid nineties. 93 I met my partner, Tom, who? We actually met on the east coast

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: and made the jump to the west coast at that time. Which was little bit challenging for me, because I'm very close to my family and friends back East, and a lot of people said, Why are you going 3,000 miles away?

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: But I was offered the opportunity to start my parade career as professionally, I was actually doing the Fourth of July parade back in my hometown in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, for almost 20 years as a volunteer, and I learned all the different aspects of putting a parade on through that parade. Became the first nationally televised Fourth of July parade in the country. And we were in 200 markets across the country on Pbs, and we were also on the American forces network around the world.

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So an opportunity came here in San Jose that the holiday parade was looking for some professional assistance. So the city hired me to help with their television broadcast and some other elements of the parade. And I worked on that parade for a few years, and then in 2,000 decided to start my own parade production business. So here we are.

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Jeremy Van Wert: So before you ended up doing parades professionally, you were doing them as a volunteer. You were working on it. You were learning the ropes and doing these what I'm assuming to be relatively small parades out on the east coast, and you had day jobs and you were. You were telling me a little bit before that you did some time in architecture firm, and then you went some places from there. What were the day jobs that you had that you were doing. Well, you were doing parades on the side.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Yeah. Actually, I took architecture in high school, and I thought that was the field I was gonna go into because I enjoyed drawing, and I did work for an architect firm for a couple of years. And unfortunately, at that time they started lay offs in that field. So I ended up being laid off, and I could not find another job in that industry. So I went on to banking. I just was looking for a job. I didn't have a degree in architecture at the time.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: But so I ended up in banking. I was in banking for 11 years. I started out in the operations department just computer inputing for new accounts that were open, and then worked my way up to the management position of that department, managing nearly 30 people.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: And so that was, you know good job. And I kinda decided banking wasn't a career that I wanted to maintain, and so I shifted gears, and friends of mine asked if I'd join them in opening a retail business and go into our own business, which I did and it was okay for about the first 3 years, and then it kind of struggled. Retail is not an easy business at all, especially in

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Western Massachusetts, and in a specialized type of retail that we had so and that's the time that I met Tom, and he said that San Jose was looking for somebody to manage their parade. So I decided to. We closed up the retail and I headed west. And that's how I ended up here.

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Jeremy Van Wert: So you're working these various different day jobs. And you're trying to make something that's more conventional happen in your life. You're doing the evening and weekend parade thing this

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Jeremy Van Wert: full time. Position comes up in San Jose. And that's a big decision to make, because you're going from things that are relatively known. Quantities, architecture, banking, retail these different things into.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I'm gonna put on parades, and I'm gonna move 3,000 miles away from my family to roll the dice on something that is completely S that nobody really understands. It's a part of my home network.

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Jeremy Van Wert: What gave you the strength to make a decision of that nature?

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: You know. II just came to terms with it to say because, you know, II had

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just really didn't know

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I had. I know Tom for maybe 6 months, and so I wasn't sure if it was the right decision, it was a struggle to decide. I actually came out and did it half year, so I came out here to help with the holiday parade, and then I went back East and finished helping with the Fourth of July for a couple of more years. So, but the Fourth of July was still volunteer. Here was where the money was being made. But you know I had the attitude that if it doesn't work

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: on the West Coast. I can always go back home to family and friends. So that that was kind of the way I looked at it, and I also looked at it is, if I don't take this opportunity, I don't want to say well, what if I had taken the opportunity? What could have happened.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: and what has happened is far beyond what I could have ever imagined.

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Jeremy Van Wert: So you come out. You're working for the city. It's year 2,000. 2,001. You took this job of what you said like, 99, 2,000, ish.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: yeah? Well, I actually took the job with the city of San Jose in 94, and I worked with that parade through 99, and then in 2,000, I started my own production business march of 2,000.

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Jeremy Van Wert: So so you're you're working for the city doing parades. Then what made you go out on your own and start your own company?

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Well, it was just with the city where there was like they were looking to go a different direction that I was hoping the parade would go. So I just decided to leave the city, and then I thought, well.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I could try this and start my own business and see. And I and actually knew at the time a couple other people who were kind of mentors of mine in the parade industry, who had their own businesses. There was one in Southern California, and a gentleman on the East coast in Atlanta, and I always admired what they did, and I thought, Gosh! What a great

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: business to be in. I don't know if I could do that. And there was a lot of people when IA lot of close friends and family members. When I said, you know, I'm gonna leave the city and gonna start my own pre production business. They all kind of scratch their heads and go. You really think you can make a business out of that.

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And I said, Well, there's other, you know. There's a couple of other people that do, and I admire what they do, and why not take a shot at it and see? So so that's what I did so. And then through my networking as a member of international festivals and events, and California, Nevada festivals and events, associations. I got to meet, and some people through that who decided well, you know, we need some help with our parade. Can you come and help us? And

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: and so I ended up having about 3 clients the first year doing parades

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Jeremy Van Wert: for clients in the first year. That's that. Actually, that sounds pretty good. Was that?

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Yeah, I mean, I thought it was great. I thought it was great, you know. It was a fair parade. It was a Fourth of July parade, and then we started. I was asked by the Chamber of commerce in Oakland to help with bringing back their holiday parade. So that's and and that was all done through networking. And for you know, I did a presentation at one of these events, seminars and and somebody at the seminar said, You know I'm supposed to do this Oakland parade, but I'm not able to do it. Would you be interested in talking with the Chamber and bringing in your insight on it?

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And that's how I ended up with doing the holiday in Oakland.

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Jeremy Van Wert: So you're starting this

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Jeremy Van Wert: parade business. It's

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Jeremy Van Wert: the early 2,000 S. And you have an event that happens in your personal life that changed a lot of things for you.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Yeah. So my partner, Tom, who at the time was

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: 44 suffered a massive stroke. He was a school teacher, and we had planned even though he was still teaching, and I was getting the business off the ground we were looking to. He would eventually have him join the business and help with production and do a float division. And because he liked to build, he could build anything

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: and in March of 2,003 he suffered a massive stroke. Where we nearly lost him at the time he had a 20% chance of survival, but he pulled through it, and he was in the hospital. A total 3 hospitals over a total of 15 weeks. So it was a little bit of a it was a challenge, because I

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: focus a lot of my attention on him, although I still had parade clients that I had to make sure that my business kept going. So but it was, yeah, it was quite a shock.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: to have that happen

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Jeremy Van Wert: well, and II do know that.

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Jeremy Van Wert: As he came out of this period of time his functioning became very different, and he has required since then a great deal more of your attention than before, and that

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Jeremy Van Wert: as as he came out, you probably had to do a lot of trying to re shuffle

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Jeremy Van Wert: how it is that you did what you do with the parades, how that affect you, and and and everything that you're doing.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Well, you know, for first off. Fortunately I run the business out of my out of the house, is out of the home, so I have a Home office all set up. and I maintain that because there was talk of before Tom Stroke, that if the business takes off, you know, we'll get an office space and all that but that, of course, that didn't happen, and I had to adjust my schedules so that I was still focusing on the business. But yeah, I had to focus on Tom, because once he came home. I remember, I remember when he

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: we had a walkthrough with the therapist from the last hospital he was on to make sure that he was able to get around the house, and a wheelchair, and walker, and that sort of thing, and the the gentleman at the time said, Are you sure you really wanna do this? He said. This is, gonna be a lot of work as a primary caregiver. But I was of the mindset that, you know, if anybody's gonna pull through this, it's gonna be Tom, and we're gonna work to get him back on his feet.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: And so that's what we did. We were working. Ii would work with him. I would break away from doing my breed work to, you know. Go in another room and help him with therapy, or when the therapist came here to the house, I didn't sit in my office. I sat with the therapist. I wanted to know what they were doing, that I could continue doing that with him when they weren't here. So my my so called off. Time was you know, working with Tom to try to get him

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: back to a I was hoping to get back to a normal set. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: The good thing is, he's cognitively good. But he's primarily in a wheelchair, so so I'm still his full time. Caregiver here. Unfortunately, that I do get assistance from his family, because I do still go back East to see my family. But it's yeah. So we we

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: work things out. And and it's you know, it's a that's a big job itself, being a primary caregiver, you know, not only them physically, taking care of them physically, but also you know the household things and chores and all that sort of thing. So but you know it's it's works III do what I can to make it work. I. When I was talking to you earlier, I try to think, make things.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: It's changed my life drastically in the fact that my outlook on life, I think in some ways it's made me even more positive about things, because I had to step back. I went through the whole. Why did this happen? Why did this happen?

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: And that was a that was a struggle time. But then I thought, Well, there's gotta be something that

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: positive about it. What can we get out of this lesson? And one of those things is you know just the outlook on life. I don't let little things bother me. I know I have friends and people that I know that the minute things they

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: kind of fly off, or they get upset about. And I think to myself.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Here's a man that's in a wheelchair that had a stroke that that's something to really

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: worried, you know, be worried about or upset about not some minor things. So I

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I don't surround myself with negative people. Ii unfortunately have lost a couple of friends, or I, since I lost them. I just don't see them as often, because when I do, that's very, very negative about. You know things that happen within their family and all this, and and II don't surround myself with negativity. I look at what's the positive side of things. And what can we do to improve things? And that's and that's what I've tried to do with with working with Tom is, you know. How can I make

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: his life

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: easier and and and keep him involved with the things that I do because he loves the idea of parade? So I you know I bring him to as many parades as I can. I have him in my office helping me look at lineups. And did I spell things correctly. He has some visual issues, but I try to keep him as involved, because I think that's important to him, and II treat him, and I treat other people, including people in my business, my clients, the way I want to be treated. How would I wanna be treated in that situation?

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And

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: So that's yeah. I try to make things as positive as possible. And for the viewer and listener this infectious positivity is an absolute superpower. That Ray has. I have been in meetings once in a once or twice with Ray, where something extremely frustrating happened.

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Jeremy Van Wert: and I could look on the zoom screen, and I saw Ray's face completely red, and I knew what he was thinking. But

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Jeremy Van Wert: after the meeting I would call Ray, and he'd go. Well, you know, sometimes things just don't go as as well as they could. But we're gonna pick everything up and we're gonna keep going. And just that that wonderful positivity in keeping things going in a positive direction and planning around setbacks. It's something that for you, Ray. I've just noticed through the years

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is such an incredible superpower that you have, and it has to come. Not just it. It feels like it came from earlier in your life

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Jeremy Van Wert: that led you to be able to deal with such incredible grace.

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Jeremy Van Wert: with, you know this situation with Tom, and and everything like that, and that when you say that it's made you even more positive. I really really believe that because there really is nothing that I've seen that ever really really gets you going in a negative direction, you just simply pivot and plan around whatever it is that's occurred. And you re-strategize.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Yeah. And I do try to do that. I mean, not that there's not things that you know.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: didn't get the upset, and and I try not to show it, and there's been times of frustration that I may just go in the walk myself on the garage and go and say a few choice words, maybe, but and then I just come back and reset myself, you know, because

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: You know things with Tom. It. There's things that he can't help because of his situation so. And and II see that, and yes, sometimes it's like, Oh, my gosh! And and but then I just have to reset and and say, Okay, we're gonna get through this. And and my aunt Beverly, who was a great mentor of mine in the

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: through my life, and also as she was the president of the Break Committee back East and really taught me a lot about life in general, but she always said, Well, you just gotta stand there and pull your bootstraps back up and

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: think positive and go, and I kind of have that in the back of my mind. And so so she influenced me with that, and and that's what you try to do. I mean, sometimes it's difficult. And I know a lot of people go through a lot of difficult things absolutely. And and I've I've had my situations, not only with Tom, but in recent years, through Covid with II lost my dad, and I have Beverly both within

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: 2 days of each other because of Covid. So that was you know, something unexpected. And and you know, you just think of what they would want out of life, and and I think my Aunt Beverly, and my dad, and Rob, and my

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: set my marge, or looking down at us and and saying, you know, this is the real. They're helping me get all these extra clients that are popping up and and making sure that the business continues, which is, which is a good thing. So yeah, it's it's II just try to stay positive and and focus. Then again, the big thing is, I don't. I don't like to surround myself around negativity.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Spirituality obviously plays a big role for a lot of people and having a, you know, positive

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Jeremy Van Wert: outlook on things or an ability to cope with setbacks, with grace and and strength and and everything. And

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Jeremy Van Wert: is there a role that just a in any belief system, or or or spirituality has played for you in any of this.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I'm not.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I'm not a churchgoer, I mean I did when I was younger. I was baptized Episcopalian. I did go through a couple of years with the Catholic Church

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: in all honesty I backed away from it

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: after Tom had a stroke, because I couldn't understand at the time why why did this happen to somebody who was so good did such good work? Not only in his community, but as a educator cause. He was a first grade school teacher, ex highly respected in his industry in the school district, and so that kind of took me away. But II,

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: you know, still have some sort of spiritual, you know. It's not that I don't believe

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: but yeah and and II think I you know II just do my own thing. I don't. I don't necessarily necessarily follow along with some of the you know different religions out there. Yeah. And and oftentimes that is

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Jeremy Van Wert: incredibly healthy thing, your your set of values that you're that you're rolling by. And you know, it's something that's really working for you. And so this you know, you've got 2,003 to, you know, 2,023. Here your business just begins to grow.

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Jeremy Van Wert: and there's a couple of things that you do that help your business really start to

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to get more and more of a popular thing. Tell me about

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Jeremy Van Wert: this period of time, this, this next 10 years after Tom has his his stroke, and what happens with your business.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Well, we you know II maintain the business we were doing. Well, I thought well with the business. We continue to gradually grow and you know, a lot of it is through networking. I'm I'm

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: definitely believe in networking and relationships. So being actively involved with associations like the International Festivals and Events Association, which is a worldwide association of parades and festivals, and many of the world renowned

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: parades and events are members of that organization. So I've gone to the conferences. I've had the privilege of speaking at the conferences on parades. So there's a networking pool of people that I've have met and gotten to know. And then there's also the California Nevada Festivals and Events Association, which I actually

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: still on the board. I've been on the board for quite a while. I was president of the Board for 12 years, and again. The networking and the relationships that I built through that organization as well helped me further grow my business. So up until the pandemic we were at about 15 parades that we were doing at the time and and of course, then the pandemic hit, and

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: it affected everybody, and in the events industry. There was no timetable for special events to come back. I mean, there was a timetable where they thought certain areas would come back, but there was never a time

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: period where they said, Oh, yeah, you can have a parade to get on the street. So for 18 months I was out of work. I actually collected unemployment for the very first time in my life.

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Through that period, just to maintain myself, I did, you know, have funds in the bank, but I was trying to, just to maintain myself. And I did take advantage of the different grants that were available. So. But I really didn't know what was gonna happen to the business because I didn't know if any of these organizations would survive, and would they have the money to put parades on with the cities cut these things out of their budgets. And so I really didn't know what was gonna happen.

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And

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Coming out of the pandemic, we gradually started getting some of the parades so that we had back online and

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: then I'll the cities and

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: downtown associations. They all decided. You know, we're we're back. We wanna do activities, and let's have a parade, or let's bring this parade back. That's been gone for so many years. So my business has skyrocketed pretty much in the last since the pandemic. And as I said, we're up to 23 parades on our schedule this year.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: we're possibly adding a couple we are. I just got word of a major parade contract that we just landed on Friday. So that's coming up. And then we I've got probably at least a half a dozen new potential parades for next year that have inquired with us to help them produce.

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Jeremy Van Wert: You do something so well. And I I've I've watched you do it several times the way that you have been able to maintain

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Jeremy Van Wert: your effectiveness with running parades. It's about your network and the network that you've built of community people.

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Jeremy Van Wert: When when you think of a parade.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: II think it. It feels to a lot of people like that's something that people did a lot in the olden days, I guess you know.

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Jeremy Van Wert: And one of the problems with

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Jeremy Van Wert: our civilization now is that we don't really have a strong. The average person doesn't have a strong connection to their own community, their own physical city town. What have you and what a parade really is is, it's a celebration of the community itself.

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Jeremy Van Wert: And so in order to do these these events. you have all these different groups, cultural groups, political groups, news groups.

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Jeremy Van Wert: musical groups coming together to to to have an event. You get to know a lot of people in this.

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Jeremy Van Wert: and it's been able to help you have the resources so that you're kind of this

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Jeremy Van Wert: incredible one. Stop shop for parades. If there's a need for a parade, who's the Guy.

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Jeremy Van Wert: It's Ray Pulver, because not only does he know how to organize something like this, he's got the relationships to be able to pull everybody in and make it happen so over time? How have you maintained, made these relationships maintain these relationships and continually grown your prominence in this industry, through this incredible ability to engage in community.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: again, it goes back to the relationships and the contacts. And and I maintain those contacts with people, you know, if it's it could be dropping an email to somebody. It could be, you know. Seeing that. And then at an event. So, for example, this weekend, we had 2 parades, and I make it a point to try to

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: meet. I can't meet them all, because there's, you know, 90 entries, but and I'm taking care of other things, but I try to make it a point to see a lot of the people that I'm in communication with. So it could be the band director for Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh High School, or it could be the the gentleman who drives the antique jeep. You know Al senior who I he's does some of the parades, and you know I always make it a point to see him, or you know, II reach out to the people

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: who are bringing in the balloons. You know the balloon staff, because I work with that company to bring in balloons, and so I try to make it a point to. It's kind of like touch points, you know, to make sure that

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: it's not just good. You're in the parade, and that's it, and cut off the relationship. Thanks very much. I'll see you next year. I try to maintain those relationships, and and where I may be able to get some of those groups into other parades. I actually am fortunate enough where I have several groups that will follow me around to different parades, because they know what to expect from our production. So and and again, it's it's

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: you get to know them. So they trust they build trust in what you're doing. And you know, again it goes back to the relationships, having having that good relationship but trusting relationship. I'm not II don't.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I don't think I do, anyway, you can tell me, cause you know me. But I don't, Co. I don't want to come across as a salesman, you know. I mean, I've met people in the industry not necessarily pray, but the events industry. And sometimes when they come up to you it's automatic sales pitch, and I don't do that. I don't do that when I give presentations at any of these events, conferences or I've spoken at downtown conferences, California Downtown Association Conference or colleges and universities to students. I don't go in and say, you know.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: oh, yeah, if you're gonna do parade, you need to hire upbeat parade productions. I go in and let them know. This is how you need to do this. This is how you get entries. This is how you put a parade down the street. This is what to look for, and I never say, you know, hire upbeat parade productions. I

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I truly believe in trying. I look at anybody who does a parade. I want them to succeed, you know. Do something good for the community and succeed. If I'm fortunate enough where they may call me for some advice, either to consult with them or to hire us as a production company. That's great, you know. We'll look at that. But, I never start these relationships as a sales pitch.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I started to just try to help them.

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Jeremy Van Wert: There's there's some things that you've recognized about your own value.

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Jeremy Van Wert: things that you've come to over the years of doing this that weren't really necessarily

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Jeremy Van Wert: They weren't necessarily things that you knew that you had as a value at the beginning of everything when you started this, and it was a real leap of faith for you to get into this. But there are. There are things that you've had to kind of learn through the years that are really the specific value that you uniquely bring to these these events and the planning of these things. What are those things?

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: well, one of them is the value of the network, the network

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: that I have built, which

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: III still struggle with that cause. The I look at those people, as you know, friends in the industry, you know these are all the all the network of people I have, or friends in the industry. But but if somebody needs something in a parade, if it's a float, or a balloon, or a costume or whatever. You know, I have those resources. So that's that's a challenging for me even to put when I'm putting a proposal together. I've had many people say to me, you know, a big value is the people that you know

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: and then the other value, I think, is the organization. II tried very hard to be as well organized as possible.

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And I

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: try to have everything up and ready where parade day should run rather smooth other than a few minor issues that can come up.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: But II wanna make sure that it runs like clockwork, you know, starts on time, and everything happens. So I'm very attentive to being organized as much as possible. And I'm probably my biggest critic, because if something doesn't go right or I didn't do something right which happened this weekend, you know. II put these folders together for all my staff, and it has the

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the parade line up in the alphabetical listing, and this you know, the staging map, and how it's supposed to be laid out, who's in their area and all that sort of thing, and one of the parades. I did. I ran the alpha list

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: and I but I didn't run it in alphabetical order. I ran it and braid line up order, which I know sounds like a corny thing, but to me it was like, Oh, my God! I can't believe I did that, and I was more upset with myself. But fortunately I've got a great team that you know.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: just punt with everything, and and and you just make it happen and make it work so. But yeah, I strive very much to be well organized, and a and again going back to the person personable, I try to be as positive and personal. And and you know there's times where you have a I had a couple of people in yesterday's parade that we're a little bit on edge, and sometimes you have to. You know you just roll with it. I don't get upset with them, and

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I try to make, you know, light of the situation or just say to them, you know, it's just a parade. Have fun with it. So yeah. But overall 99.9% of the people are just

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: there to have a good time and celebrate the community. And and that's what it's all about. And to me the reward. I'm so fortunate I have to pinch myself still to this day that we get paid to do this. But to me the reward is the thousands of people lining the streets to see this go down the street, and how happy the participants are and the reaction the participants are getting from the spectators. That's that's all I need to see. So

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Jeremy Van Wert: you talked about some of the crazy things that some you alluded to, some of the crazy things that happened.

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Jeremy Van Wert: What is the most crazy thing that's happened in a parade?

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Oh, gosh, well, you know, it's kind of run the gamut from

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: years ago, when I was doing the fourth of library back East, one of the floats caught on fire in the streets, and to get we had to get the you know fire Department there to take care of that issue. We've had protesters sometimes at parades, and we have to be very conscious. That's another thing. A lot of people may not. Realize is that

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: when things happen in the world we have to take a look at and see is that something that could affect the parade in some way, you know. So those things we're cautious with on that

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I've had accidents where people fell off horses or the horse reared up and people fell off. And

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: so there's a variety of things that could happen. We try to be very strict on rules and guidelines, and we try to. My staff tries to make sure that the people are following the guidelines that we're set, that we set because I

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: believe in safety first, and I want people to have a good time, but they gotta do it safely. So so there's a variety of incidences that could happen. Fortunately they're far and few between in most cases, although this weekend was a a little bit of exception with a couple of people getting hurt at the parade. Unfortunately, they're okay.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: But those are things you have to look at and and take into account. But it is as the world has changed. And just as there's a lot of different issues that we have to watch for and some of the cities are more secured. Than they were. I mean it. It used to be, you know. You just put up a few traffic comb barricades around the area of this where the streets are closed.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: but because of incidences that have happened in other parades where cars drove through and and unfortunately killed people. We have to put up, and most cities are are big trucks to block for street closures, so they don't get into the parade route. There's bomb sweeps that are done now in staging areas and along the parade route.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Some cases there's police up on rooftops, monitoring everything that's going on. So those are things that we have to take into account. If there's certain dignitaries in the parade we have to notify most of the cities that you know, we have either the Mayor or the Congressperson, or whatever in the parade, and so they have to be alert of that for security reasons. So security is really changed quite a bit. People on the street don't see that. But behind the scenes we're well aware of what's going on

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Jeremy Van Wert: so early on in your career here. Was there a sense of you? Just not quite knowing if this was going to work?

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Yeah, when I started my business definitely. Yeah, II wasn't sure. And I was really concerned on, if this doesn't work, what am I gonna do?

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So

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: II was persistent, though, in trying to. You know. Get the word out through these networking areas and but I had to establish myself. Yes, I was doing it as a volunteer back on my hometown. And yes, I did this holiday parade here in San Jose, which was a big that was extremely helpful for me to as I started my business because I had the experience

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: as a professional with San Jose, and then with my previous year's experiences of volunteer, knowing all the different aspects of the parade. So but it was. It's challenging. And, as I said, I had a lot of friends and family scratching their head thinking, Do you really wanna do this? Do you think? Cause they never heard of anybody doing a business as parades? Which, quite honestly.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I think there's only 5 of us in the country that do this. So and the majority of them are on the east. I think there's 2 of us here, one in the South, but that, unfortunately, that business is not doing as well as it used to. And then there's Atlanta, Philadelphia, Florida, and and one other up in the northeast. So there's not many of us in the field focusing just on parade production.

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Jeremy Van Wert: How long was it into doing this that you knew, or was starting to see, the evidence that it actually might work.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I think it was.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Honestly, it was probably right around the time. Tom had a stroke, and coming

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: where we started, adding a couple of more businesses or more parades to our business. And learning that people were talking about us at other events. So for example.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: yeah, about 3, yeah, 3 to 4 years in is when I knew that it was kind of taking off because I was getting calls from like the Monterey

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: old Town Association contacted me and said, Oh, well, we were talking to the people from Hollister, who said that you do their parade at the downtown, my or the California Downtown Association. So they were networking without me knowing it. But you know they were saying they were talking about doing a parade in Monterey and bringing back the Fourth of July parade. And this other community said, well, we work with, you know, upbeat parades. Why don't you contact Ray so so

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: once that networking starts and and it's and that happens all the time my business has been built on networking. I mean, I do some. I do. I have my website.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: I'm not really prominent on social media. But I try to put things out there about the business on social media and I do support California and event of Festivals and Events Association at the Convention. But it's not like, I put out ads on Google or whatever I did purposely name my business. What I did because I wanted to make sure that people knew what the business was so when I need to upbeat an upbeat came from the fact that, you know

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: parades are fun and upbeat, and the beat of a drum. So I said, upbeat. And then I wanted to make sure parade productions was in it. So people knew what it was. And

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: usually, if you do a Google search for parade production of the prey production comes up and I don't have to pay for that. So so that's free. And I've had people find me on the on. You know the Internet that way as well. But but I you know any advice I give people starting businesses, or, or, you know, starting careers and how they can advance it. It's again I go back to the networking and relationships

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Jeremy Van Wert: that's kind of where I was gonna go next. With regard to you know you, if you you got a young person who's got a good idea where they think they do that. But it it feels like a long shot to them, but

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Jeremy Van Wert: they think there might be a market for it. And you know you've talked a lot about networking and how important that's been to you and and it really has been the the important part of growing what you do. What are the other pieces of advice that you would tell somebody who says, I think I've got an idea. I don't know if it has wings. I don't know how to make this happen

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Jeremy Van Wert: should I do it?

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Yeah, you know I'm at the adage of follow your passion. you know, if you're passionate, I am very passionate about what I do, and about doing parades. So follow your passion. II remember when I was in my twenties saying, You know, I'm gonna retire by the time I'm 40. I'm gonna do something with my life, never knowing. At the time I was going into the parade production business.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: But having gone into the prey production business is. I kinda like retiring almost because I still pitch myself that I'm you know. But I'm doing something I absolutely love and very passionate about. So I would tell

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: people who are think they may have an idea. If you're passionate about it. go for it. Check with other people that may be in a similar type of industry, or in that industry or which I did because I actually built relationships with the gentleman who at the time was running a pretty production company out of Atlanta, Georgia, who I admired.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: and he became a mentor to me, and he actually hired me because he was doing when I moved out here to California. He knew that I came out, and he was doing the Chinese New Year's parade in San Francisco, and he hired me as part of the production team to to work with him on that which was terrific. And then I also

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: had a gentleman in Southern California, who at the time was running a production company who does the Hollywood Christmas parade, and he did many parades in Southern California, and I got to know him as a fellow board member for Cala, that we were both on the Board for California Festivals and Events Association. We never competed for customers at all. But he was a true mentor. I would listen to him, and how what he was going through and what he did.

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and it really helped me a lot, and you know, to this day he still calls me and and wants to know how business is going. He's since retired from the business. But he's really pleased to see where we've taken our business so and so that's good. So I would, you know again. It's the

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: you know. Follow your passion, build that network, and and talk with people who may be in that line of work and and see how they've become successful.

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Jeremy Van Wert: What is your website?

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: My website is upbeat parades.com fantastic.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Ray pulver. Thank you so much for being on the mindful mutiny. Podcast.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your incredible sincerity. Thank you for sharing your story here on, and for

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Jeremy Van Wert: being a beacon of positivity, a beacon of how to how to put something together and just keep working hard with strategy and network and working through the kinds of

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Jeremy Van Wert: major things that people go through, and that people survive, and that you can.

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Jeremy Van Wert: you know, make the best of in so many ways. And I just appreciate you, you know, being here and sharing your story.

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Ray Pulver - Upbeat Parade Productions: Oh, my gosh, thank you so much for asking me, and you know I adore you as a friend, and thank you so much.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Thank you for listening to the mindful mutiny. Podcast now go be something great.

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Jeremy Van Wert: Okay. I'm gonna

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Jeremy Van Wert: cut the recording here.

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Jeremy Van Wert: And it's asking me if I want to stop recording. Sure. Yes, I do.