Our very own people person, Alan Johnson, has spent a lifetime helping people. With good listening and great photography skills, Alan is a storyteller. I’m proud to call him my friend. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
4:03 – my dad took typing because that’s where the pretty girls were; he claims typing saved his life.
10:32 – I really wanted to be on the radio, so I showed up at 16 with my FCC disc jockey license and played country music
14:43 – I had my life all planned out, then I fell asleep driving home and broke my face
23:03 – Just because someone has a leadership role or not, doesn’t mean they’re better or worse than you. Every role is important.
31:36 – That’s always my MO at work, start at entry level, work hard, prove who you are, and then move up rapidly.
39:59 – That’s when I discovered my first Jeep, it was basically a motorcycle, but with a roll cage.
48:01 – who’s the one person on your team who never puts their phone down, won’t shut up and can’t build anything? They all laughed and pointed at me!
56:02 – I started working with promoters because my job was to help tell the story of something I was passionate about and loved.
1:07:47 – Imagine life as a piece of paper, most people fill it from top to bottom, left to right, there’s not a blank space anywhere – but life happens in the margins
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:39.630] – Big Rich Klein
On this episode of Conversations is a guy that went from Band Camp to Hammer Town. With many stops in between. That’s right. I welcome Alan Johnson. Alan, how are you doing today?
[00:01:52.040] – Alan Johnson
Well, this one time at Band Camp, I’m doing really good. Excellent. I’m doing really good, Rich.
[00:01:57.800] – Big Rich Klein
Well, cool. Let’s Let’s talk about the very beginning. Where were you born and raised?
[00:02:03.740] – Alan Johnson
I was actually born in Anaheim, California. What? I lived there until I was seven. Then my parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided the late ’70s in California was not where they wanted to raise kids and moved me to Arkansas, which is what I consider home. So I grew up in Arkansas. I was born in Anaheim.
[00:02:22.130] – Big Rich Klein
I thought you were Arkansas all the way.
[00:02:27.140] – Alan Johnson
Okay. It’s interesting, though, because the high school I went to. You can walk down the halls. You can see my parents’ graduation pictures, my grandparents’ graduation pictures. So again, Arkansas is home. But yeah, I went to California.
[00:02:40.900] – Big Rich Klein
So your parents started in Arkansas, went to California, You were born there, and then you guys moved back.
[00:02:49.230] – Alan Johnson
Exactly. And that’s where I’m at now, actually. Life has a way of bringing you all the way back around. So I am back in Arkansas these days.
[00:02:55.880] – Big Rich Klein
Well, I can tell you I will not be going back to my hometown, but I am in my home state right now. But not forever.
[00:03:07.440] – Alan Johnson
I got you. No, it’s just funny how where you grow up imprints you to a certain extent. Our My kids grew up in Arizona. That’s actually where you and I met, Rich, when I was in Arizona. But they’d heard so many stories about Arkansas that Ivan ended up going to the University of Arkansas, and Kate graduated university here, too. So both my kids claim Arkansas, even though they grew up in Arizona. It’s just funny how it shaped you.
[00:03:32.830] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah, my neighborhood that I grew up in is no longer like it was when I grew up. It’s San Francisco Bay Area, and there’s been a lot of immigrants into the area. Not saying that that’s a bad thing, but it’s completely changed from when I was a kid. Just driving through the area, you can really tell the difference.
[00:03:57.150] – Alan Johnson
Absolutely.
[00:03:58.990] – Big Rich Klein
What drove How do you get your parents to go from Arkansas to California?
[00:04:03.460] – Alan Johnson
Well, have you ever flown into John Wayne International, Orange County? Yes. There’s a Chevron station right across the street that my grandpa opened in ’68. When my dad graduated high school, he wanted him to come out and run the gas station with him. They got out there in late ’60s. It’s funny, a lot of what I do is on the computer these days, whether it’s social media or graphic design or whatever. In high school, my dad took typing because that’s where all the pretty girls were. Really sound life plan. When he got drafted in ’70 for Vietnam, he could type 74 words a minute. They’d put him in radio teletype and send him to Germany. To this day, he claimed typing saved his life. When we were in high school, he made us take typing, and then computers came along and all that type of stuff. But yeah, I was actually almost born in Germany. My mom got back to the States about three weeks before I was born. But yeah, they were out there ’68 to ’78. In ’79, we moved back to Arkansas. I was very impressed. I was allowed to play on the grass back in Arkansas. READ MORE
