Speaker 1: Welcome to on the Job. On today's episode, we're speaking
Speaker 1: with Pete McMahon over in the Ames Iowa Express Office,
Speaker 1: who for the past two years has been working alongside
Speaker 1: his wife, Katie. And while working with a spouse might
Speaker 1: seem daunting to some, as we'll hear, Pete had a
Speaker 1: lot of experience being part of a team long before
Speaker 1: coming to Express. If you were to walk into the
Speaker 1: Express office in Ames, Iowa, you might find yourself thinking, geez,
Speaker 1: that's a big guy over there. And that's the same
Speaker 1: thing that the football coaches at the University of Iowa
Speaker 1: thought when Pete McMahon walked onto their field back in
Speaker 1: two thousand as an incoming freshman.
Speaker 2: Guy was six seven, two hundred and ninety pounds, you know,
Speaker 2: as a senior in high school, and back then that
Speaker 2: was pretty big. So that was attraction from the Iowa program.
Speaker 1: As a born and raised Iowan, it had always been
Speaker 1: Pete McMahon's dream to play for the Hawk guys. But
Speaker 1: even as big as he was, that dream wasn't going
Speaker 1: to come easy.
Speaker 3: For those that don't know what is being a walk
Speaker 3: on mean?
Speaker 4: Okay, great question. So every year the university is allowed
Speaker 4: to give.
Speaker 2: You know, so many scholarships, so they bring in the
Speaker 2: you know, they hand out those scholarships to the top
Speaker 2: players that they recruit, and then they bring on a
Speaker 2: handful of folks that are walk ons they call, which
Speaker 2: don't get scholarships, so you pay your own way. And
Speaker 2: then there's a group of those walk ons that are recruited.
Speaker 2: And then there's even another group they call the first
Speaker 2: day walk ons, and they say, hey, if you can
Speaker 2: get yourself in school, if you enrolled in school, and
Speaker 2: then we're not going to help you get it, get
Speaker 2: accepted the university. If you can show you can pass
Speaker 2: your conditioning test on the first day of school, you
Speaker 2: can join the team.
Speaker 4: We'll give you a uniform you can hold this tackling dummy.
Speaker 4: And that was me.
Speaker 2: So I was not a scholarship kid. I wasn't even
Speaker 2: a recruited walk on. I was a first what way
Speaker 2: would call, first day walk on.
Speaker 1: And in fact, Pete did do all that. After proving
Speaker 1: himself in the weight room and on the field, he
Speaker 1: was told that he'd made the team. Pete McMahon's dream
Speaker 1: of being a Hawkey had come true. Had you been
Speaker 1: in the stands as a fan when you were younger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we went to a few games as a kid.
Speaker 2: My dad was worked every Saturday, so it was hard
Speaker 2: for us to get there. But there were times, you know,
Speaker 2: went to half a dozen games growing up as a kid.
Speaker 2: But we always listened to it on the radio, always
Speaker 2: watched the game on Saturdays if we were home. So
Speaker 2: it was a great great to be you know, on
Speaker 2: the field and be part of what I grew up with.
Speaker 1: But before you go thinking it was all gravy after that,
Speaker 1: you should know that making the football team does doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you get to play. In fact, Pete didn't see
Speaker 1: any game time until his sophomore year.
Speaker 2: Ten guys got injured and I finally got hit and
Speaker 2: McMahon get in there or you know, go.
Speaker 4: Fill in that spot.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, So I run in and I you know,
Speaker 2: run a couple of plays, probably screwed up ninety percent
Speaker 2: of them, and but I got an opportunity to go in.
Speaker 1: Pete didn't even get to eat with the scholarship guys.
Speaker 4: I had to buy my own meal plan. Everybody else
Speaker 4: got to go to this you know, the training table,
Speaker 4: and they would it was for scholarship kids only.
Speaker 5: Wow, that's I imagine they're getting like turkey carved up,
Speaker 5: and you're over there like prison style, pushing your tray along.
Speaker 4: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with all the with all the other kids, with
Speaker 2: all the with the general population.
Speaker 1: It was even worse. It's a team won because on Sundays,
Speaker 1: following a Hawk Gys win, all the scholarship kids would
Speaker 1: be taken to this fancy athletic club for dinner.
Speaker 2: Steak and lobster tale. That was the meal on Sunday nights.
Speaker 2: But I wasn't allow to go. I couldn't go. It
Speaker 2: was a scholarship only. All the scholarship kids get to
Speaker 2: go eat lobster tail and steak, and then all of
Speaker 2: us walk on.
Speaker 4: Since we weren't allowed, we'd go to McDonald's.
Speaker 2: I mean we would literally drive the opposite alight, Oh
Speaker 2: all right, we'll go get jees Burgers.
Speaker 1: And well, I can't get over the injustice of that.
Speaker 1: Pete didn't seem to mind. If anything, it motivated him
Speaker 1: to work that much harder in the weight room and
Speaker 1: hit that much harder on the field.
Speaker 2: You know, some folks get down, oh this is this
Speaker 2: is unfair or whatever, but other folks, you know, used
Speaker 2: his motivation, and I grew up in a blue collar
Speaker 2: family and you know, a working class family and all
Speaker 2: that stuff. If you didn't have something, you went out
Speaker 2: and you worked for it, you got it.
Speaker 1: With that blue collar work ethic and the mentality that
Speaker 1: he continually had to prove himself, Pete McMahon came into
Speaker 1: his own as a Hawk guy and went on to
Speaker 1: have an impressive college.
Speaker 2: Career, you know, as a team captain and you know,
Speaker 2: two Big ten championship rings.
Speaker 4: We finished in the.
Speaker 2: Time ten three years in a row, beat Florida in
Speaker 2: a bowl game.
Speaker 4: My senior year.
Speaker 2: Beat LSU on a last second touchdown pass.
Speaker 1: So when it came time for graduation, there was no
Speaker 1: question in Pete's mind what was next.
Speaker 4: You're gonna play at the next level. From day one.
Speaker 2: You walk into the weight room and you see the
Speaker 2: pictures and the jerseys plastered everywhere of all the guys.
Speaker 4: That came before you, that all played in the NFL.
Speaker 3: So where were you during drafted?
Speaker 2: Yeah, my dad's house back home, sitting on the couch
Speaker 2: in the living room, just glued to the TV.
Speaker 1: Round one passes and Pete doesn't hear his name. Then
Speaker 1: round two goes.
Speaker 4: By and I get a phone call from the Dallas Cowboys.
Speaker 2: And he just just chatting, you know, hey, Pete just
Speaker 2: went to college.
Speaker 4: Just touch base with you, I see how things are going.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, this is awesome. I think they're gonna
Speaker 4: pick me.
Speaker 2: And they're like, okay, all right, great, thanks, good to chat,
Speaker 2: We'll see you later. And then the next pick was
Speaker 2: out of the University of Iowa, Sean Conson. I did.
Speaker 2: It was a friend of mine, nfllow teammate, and so
Speaker 2: there was a big high there. We thought, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: it's going to be a third round pick and all
Speaker 2: this stuff, and nope, it wasn't me.
Speaker 1: By the end of the first day of drafts, Pete
Speaker 1: still is unsigned, though this shouldn't be all that surprising
Speaker 1: because statistically speaking, only one point six percent of college
Speaker 1: players go on to play in the NFL. Yet despite
Speaker 1: those odds, Pete tries to stay positive as he settles
Speaker 1: in for the second day of the draft. The fourth
Speaker 1: round passes, the fifth round passes, and then finally, in
Speaker 1: the sixth round of the two thousand and five NFL Draft,
Speaker 1: the Oakland Raiders select Pete McMahon for their offensive line.
Speaker 5: Do they still get the sixth rounds that comically giant check.
Speaker 2: I didn't get the big No, they didn't do that
Speaker 2: for me, but I would have liked that.
Speaker 3: So you turned pro and you go out West.
Speaker 4: YEP. Kind of thought, all right, I got drafted, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna go to this team. I'm gonna be here for
Speaker 4: a couple of years.
Speaker 2: We were looking at houses, then quickly realized it was California,
Speaker 2: so I'm not gonna be buying a house in California
Speaker 2: anytime soon.
Speaker 4: So but we kind of.
Speaker 2: Thought we were there and I was gonna, you know,
Speaker 2: get my car shipped and make a life there.
Speaker 1: But only halfway into preseason training, Pete suffers a knee injury,
Speaker 1: and a bad one at that.
Speaker 4: So that was a little bit of a of a
Speaker 4: curve ball, and then.
Speaker 1: So had surgery, and very quickly Pete learns what it's
Speaker 1: really like in the pro league.
Speaker 2: Two days later, they cut me, and on top of it,
Speaker 2: they didn't even tell me. I found out when my
Speaker 2: girlfriend at the time my wife now, she called me
Speaker 2: and said, hey, it's on the internet that you just
Speaker 2: got released.
Speaker 4: So I called my agent and he's like, what's going on?
Speaker 4: And he calls up. I was like, oh, yeah, we
Speaker 4: released him, and so from.
Speaker 2: Then on I kind of got that, had that mentality
Speaker 2: of hey, you got to look out for yourself and
Speaker 2: this thing.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, soon after getting released from Oakland, Pete manages to
Speaker 1: get on with the Cleveland Browns and spends the season
Speaker 1: with them.
Speaker 2: In that off season that summer, I had gotten married
Speaker 2: and we I was like, all right, you know, moving
Speaker 2: my wife, Katie, We're gonna move back to Cleveland. You know,
Speaker 2: you start a life. But if she's living with her
Speaker 2: parents at the time, had you know, half the wedding
Speaker 2: gifts and packed in the car, I'm kind of like,
Speaker 2: let's not take twelve sets of china to my one
Speaker 2: bedroom apartment in Cleveland. Just you never know what's going
Speaker 2: to happen. So we get there, we're there about a week.
Speaker 2: I get the phone call, Pete, bring your playbook. So
Speaker 2: going into training camp, they released me. We packed up
Speaker 2: the car. We were gone by eight o'clock the next morning.
Speaker 1: So Pete and his wife arrived back in Iowa, and
Speaker 1: the very next day he gets a call from the
Speaker 1: New York Jets saying, pack your bags.
Speaker 2: I look like a really good husband. Just took my
Speaker 2: law's daughter out of their house, brought her back.
Speaker 4: A week later. Oh m. And in that time we
Speaker 4: bought a new puppy.
Speaker 2: So now hey, I'm gonna bring your daughter back and
Speaker 2: with this new dog, and then I'm gonna I'm hopping.
Speaker 4: On a flight to New York. So that was a
Speaker 4: little bit of a crazy time there.
Speaker 1: So then Pete goes to New York in Buffalo and
Speaker 1: Miami and Jacksonville and New England and Hamburg, Germany of
Speaker 1: all places, and then back to Jacksonville.
Speaker 3: You played for a lot of teams in the NFL.
Speaker 2: Yes, I did. People ask me what teams do you
Speaker 2: play for? I'm like, I don't know, you name one.
Speaker 2: I probably was with them.
Speaker 3: So you have a nice collection of jerseys in your closet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do, I do. Yes.
Speaker 1: But eventually Pete decides that as much of a dream
Speaker 1: as it was to play in the NFL, enough is
Speaker 1: an So when we come back from the break, we'll
Speaker 1: hear how Pete McMahon went from the gridiron to express employment.
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Speaker 1: We're back with Pete McMahon, who, after a successful college
Speaker 1: career in his home state of Iowa, went on to
Speaker 1: play professional football, albeit for more teams than sometimes he
Speaker 1: can even keep track of.
Speaker 4: You know, go to Buffalo, I go to Miami.
Speaker 2: I think I went to Carolina on point.
Speaker 1: So, as Pete was being shuffled from one team to
Speaker 1: the next, he started looking around for different opportunities, jobs
Speaker 1: that might not be as exciting as the NFL, but
Speaker 1: offered a stability that Pete hadn't yet known.
Speaker 2: I studied economics in college and an economics degree, so
Speaker 2: I thought I might want to do something in the
Speaker 2: finance world.
Speaker 4: But it's two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2: Anybody that was around that time knows that was not
Speaker 2: the best time to look at going into the finance world.
Speaker 4: And then so I looked around.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I guess I'm a former college and professional athlete,
Speaker 2: what do they do? And I saw a bunch of
Speaker 2: guys that I knew were working in the medical device world.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, I guess I'll go do that.
Speaker 1: So Pete starts reaching out to anyone and everyone in
Speaker 1: the medical device industry.
Speaker 3: You reach out to them and they're like, yes, send
Speaker 3: over your resume.
Speaker 5: You got a degree from University of Iowa, and then
Speaker 5: not my after that that's applicable to what.
Speaker 2: You're applying to. Absolutely no, it was not. I did
Speaker 2: some I did some roofing and some substitute teaching while
Speaker 2: I was in between looking you know, for teams just
Speaker 2: to pay the mortgage. But yeah, I didn't have much
Speaker 2: on my resume.
Speaker 5: In a way, you're sort of like a walk on
Speaker 5: for that job too. You didn't have a lot of
Speaker 5: business experience, had zero business experience. I had some life experience.
Speaker 2: I had been knocked down a few times, and I
Speaker 2: think that's what I think. You know, employers want to
Speaker 2: see people who have faced some adversity and then how
Speaker 2: have they gotten through that adversity.
Speaker 4: And we would just go on to these interviews and
Speaker 4: just talk and they wanted to know my story. Hey,
Speaker 4: how'd you get here? Today.
Speaker 1: And just like with the Iowa coaches, Pete managed to
Speaker 1: prove himself to the interviewer and once hired, he ended
Speaker 1: up staying at that job for twelve years. And it
Speaker 1: must have given you a sense of stability.
Speaker 3: That you didn't have in your football career.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I could unpack my bag, you know, I didn't.
Speaker 4: Have to keep my suitcase packed.
Speaker 2: Uh, and in the corner of my room there, and
Speaker 2: I was able to just relax a little bit and
Speaker 2: and you know, build a life and then started to
Speaker 2: you know, think about having kids and got three three
Speaker 2: kids here today and you know, get back into family
Speaker 2: and friends and community and all that stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 2: there was a there was a big kind of wait there,
Speaker 2: and that all kind of went into the decision like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm done, I'm ready to move on to the next step.
Speaker 1: And while Pete was working in the med sales industry,
Speaker 1: his wife Katie had gotten involved with Express Employment Professionals
Speaker 1: by buying an office in Ames, Iowa.
Speaker 2: The plan was that Katie was going to be was
Speaker 2: going to stay at home, she was going to have
Speaker 2: the third baby, she was going to stay be a
Speaker 2: stay at home mount that lasted probably not even six months,
Speaker 2: so we moved back, we have our third kid, and
Speaker 2: we learn about Express through her brother who lives in Minneapolis.
Speaker 2: His neighbor is the developer and an Express owner, and
Speaker 2: he said, hey, you know, anybody in Eames that wants
Speaker 2: to buy an Express office, there's one for sale. And
Speaker 2: then we heard about it. We are like, this sounds
Speaker 2: pretty good. So we dove in. Never been in the
Speaker 2: staffing industry before, knew nothing about it, no connections, nobody
Speaker 2: we knew was in the staffing world.
Speaker 1: But despite her lack of experience in the staffing industry,
Speaker 1: Katie dove in with Gusto.
Speaker 2: She went in sold, she found her the team when
Speaker 2: you know, recruited her internal team. She went and got
Speaker 2: business and established herself in the community and really did
Speaker 2: it all all on her own.
Speaker 4: So for the.
Speaker 2: First seven in six and a half years, you know,
Speaker 2: she ran this thing and had some good success.
Speaker 5: And that seemed to have worked well enough that it
Speaker 5: even inspired you to join in.
Speaker 2: Absolutely no while that was her main focus, and you know,
Speaker 2: building this business, and I tried to be a part
Speaker 2: as much as I could, but it pretty much was
Speaker 2: bringing coffee and change light bulbs was kind of my job.
Speaker 2: But I always looked at it and said, oh, this
Speaker 2: is I would love to be a part of it.
Speaker 2: So I was I wouldn't say jealous, but I was
Speaker 2: always eager to learn and be a part of it.
Speaker 3: Did you have any reservations about working with your wife?
Speaker 2: You know, lots of people ask me that, you know,
Speaker 2: that seems to be a hot topic of discussion when
Speaker 2: I tell people that I work with my wife, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean honestly, no, We work really well together.
Speaker 4: We always have.
Speaker 2: I have just tried to be very cognizant of this
Speaker 2: is something that she's built and she's put her blood,
Speaker 2: sweat and tears in and I don't want to try
Speaker 2: to come in and act like I know anything or
Speaker 2: try to disrupt things. That was kind of the only
Speaker 2: thing that I was a little bit. I had to
Speaker 2: make sure I was not stepping on any tells. And
Speaker 2: the way we had it structured, there's really two businesses.
Speaker 2: You know, we can kind of separate, which is nice.
Speaker 3: What's a day for you at Express?
Speaker 2: My day is really revolves around that, supporting my team,
Speaker 2: my customers, and our candidates.
Speaker 4: Katie and I are very I like and we are very.
Speaker 2: Cognizant about how we do things and how we go
Speaker 2: about things, and we want.
Speaker 4: To differentiate ourselves from the.
Speaker 2: Competitors because, hey, we do this, but we do this
Speaker 2: with a little extra we do it with more support.
Speaker 2: We're going to make you feel better about our service
Speaker 2: as opposed to the next guy.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, Pete has actually found that a lot of the
Speaker 1: things he learned in his football career have helped him
Speaker 1: in his role at Express.
Speaker 5: What is the Iowa way and has it influenced your
Speaker 5: role at Express?
Speaker 2: Absolutely doing things the right way always and preparing yourself
Speaker 2: to be the best. That's a reflection of what we
Speaker 2: do at Express, especially when we go to our leadership
Speaker 2: conference and you get to see all these other folks
Speaker 2: and people want to do things the right way. Everybody
Speaker 2: wants to strive to be the best. And sometimes your
Speaker 2: formula or what you do, how you do go about
Speaker 2: doing things isn't pretty or doesn't drive the results that
Speaker 2: you want, but you stick to it and you keep
Speaker 2: going and going. And that's the Express formula that they
Speaker 2: have created, and it's successful when you stick to it
Speaker 2: and you do it and you follow through. There's no shortcuts, Nope,
Speaker 2: no shortcuts.
Speaker 1: And of course Pete McMahon knows firsthand what it's like
Speaker 1: to have little to show for yourself besides unwavering dedication.
Speaker 1: Is there something you look for in these people? Can
Speaker 1: you sort of tell if you're that football recruiter.
Speaker 5: Now you're on the other side of it and you're
Speaker 5: seeing the potential in people.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I had.
Speaker 2: You know, coaches in the past say hey, we want
Speaker 2: folks that are going to work hard and want to
Speaker 2: be there.
Speaker 4: You teach them the rest.
Speaker 2: So I kind of try to use that mentality, Hey
Speaker 2: do they want to learn?
Speaker 4: Do they want to be here?
Speaker 2: Are they excited to come in here every day and
Speaker 2: be better? It's a pretty cool thing when you see
Speaker 2: when somebody comes in and you give them an opportunity
Speaker 2: and they take advantage of it. You know, if they've
Speaker 2: got kids and they've got family members, you know, the
Speaker 2: fifteen dollars an hour job to somebody is extremely impactful
Speaker 2: to a family and community.
Speaker 4: We're all about that.
Speaker 2: We're all about giving people, you know, another chance to
Speaker 2: be successful.
Speaker 1: So in essence, what Pete McMahon does at Express is
Speaker 1: look for people like himself, fellow walk ons just waiting
Speaker 1: for an opportunity to prove themselves for on the job.
Speaker 3: I'm Avery Thompson,