Speaker: Ryan Kerrigan
Please tell us your name and how you know Crit, and share what impact he has had on your career or how you have impacted his.
Ryan Kerrigan: Hey, you know, I was certainly bouncing around a number of ideas here when I, uh, I got the chance to give you a greeting like this. Uh, you know, thinking I could do maybe a little riff off of the, the time you told me you were touring with ZZ Top or, you know, maybe make the ending to a story that Mary once told me about your past but never got to the end to. Uh, but, you know, just, uh, thinking about how, how, you know, what, what, what would I take away, uh, from my time, uh, uh, getting to share with you. Uh, and, you know, what came to mind was, you know, when we were upstairs still on the 15th floor and I had been inhabiting down the end of the hallway in Weber's old office. You know, occasionally, you know, certainly people that don't work here anymore. Uh, you know, when times you would come down to my office and, you know, they would say something along the line of, you know, what is crit doing there all day. I bet you he does nothing. Uh, and if you were traveling, uh, and not in your office. I would do the same thing. I'd get up and I'd walk into your office and on that bookshelf back there used to have a plaque. Uh, and I don't know what organization it was, but they were Commemorating you for uh working 80 hours every week throughout the summer. And I would grab that plaque and I would show it to the, the, the, the snarky person asking questions about the boss. And I would read it to them and you would, I would immediately see the, the, the, the, the shock in their eye. They knew what I was saying, they knew where I was going with this. And, and I would turn and I would say to them, like he could sit in that chair for an hour and do nothing. He can watch C NBC or, or, or, or the Auburn game on the big screen and he has earned that, you know, and, and he, you don't, you don't get to this point in your career if you haven't put those numbers on the chart, uh you know, and it really, what I really ended up learning from that is that, you know, you don't need to rush into your ideas, that your ideas uh uh uh take time to grow and, you know, you always made decision making, look so easy. You came off as just a man walking in the park and you're making these high powered, quick, definitive decisions. But at the same, same time being so very thoughtful and deliberate in your actions and taking time to come up with your answer or your response or whatever, great idea you have that's coming next. And, you know, that is certainly what I am. I, I, I've learned from you and, uh, whenever possible I try to apply a, a very thoughtful, uh, uh, amount of time and make a very deliberate decision. Uh, because you know, what I learned from you is that there's no, if you go rushing into a bad idea, you're gonna spend more time correcting that bad idea than if you just sat in your office and became very thoughtful and deliberate on your action. Uh You always always come out with a much better outcome. Um, you know, and I, and I wanna thank you for that and I wanna, I wanna thank you for, uh, being able to weather the storms that we've weathered here that, uh, uh, you never looked like there was ever a problem if the boat was about to tip over. You never let any of the passengers know on that boat. It was about to go in. Uh, and, you know, looking in hindsight now, uh, uh, that is such a, an amazing and impressive feat to pull off. And, uh, uh I can only say that hopefully one day I'm able to, uh, uh make decisions of that magnitude, uh, looks so darn easy. Uh, you know, I don't wanna, I wanna thank you for, you know, the stability that you've provided me so that I can provide for my family. Uh I wanna thank you for inviting me into your family uh and Mary and the kids and you know, it, it's really going to be a uh uh a big change in the, in the days of my life. Uh that II I no longer have the uh the demands to push me around anymore. Um, but it's really been fantastic, Chris. I, I wish you the best of luck. Uh, and I'm sure the next chapter of your life here is going to be just as successful and fantastic as the many chapters that proceeded. Uh Best of luck be. Well.
