Phil Rawlings has his hands in a lot of things,he has embedded himself in off-road, like many of us. You’ll find him at Salt Lake Off-Road Expo, At Your Leisure, and many other places where voices matter. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
6:38 – I’m generally a very mellow and chill dude, but I definitely have an adrenaline addiction side
11:52– I got busted for a fix-it ticket, but they’d been after me for a while
21:13 – I have a photographic memory that doesn’t have any film now
36:02 – I found a job that was my favorite ever, I got to design and play with the coolest stuff
49:26 – people said, “You’re from Utah – I didn’t know they had off-road companies in Utah.” That bothered me, we’re like the mecca for off-roading!
55:53 – our guiding pillars – promote Utah off-road businesses, promote Utah, and unite the off-road community
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:40.280] – Big Rich Klein
On this week’s episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I will be speaking with Phil Rawlings. Phil is the Director of the Salt Lake Off-Road and Outdoor Expo, the Boise Off-Road and Outdoor Expo, a producer of At Your Leisure TV, a mechanical engineer at Artec Industries, and is on the board of directors for the Blue Ribbon Coalition. All right, Phil, it’s great to have you on the air. You’ve been beating around the off-road industry here for a while and got your hands into a lot of things like a lot of us do. So it’s good to have you on board.
[00:02:18.520] – Phil Rawlings
Well, thanks. I appreciate it. It was fun to get the call and say, Hey, come on. I’ve listened to a couple of your podcasts and I’ve known who you are and followed you for quite some time. So for me, this is an honor and a treat.
[00:02:36.220] – Big Rich Klein
Well, the nice thing about this industry is that everybody that’s in this industry is just a regular person. We’ve just goes on a different path than most. So it’s good to have you on. So let’s start off with, where were you born and raised?
[00:02:53.900] – Phil Rawlings
All different answers. I was born in Salt Lake, and a couple of years after, we moved Preston, Idaho, and then we moved to Burley, Idaho. And then high school was Logan, Utah. And then college. Yeah, you said not to jump too far ahead. No, that’s fine. But anyway.
[00:03:17.030] – Big Rich Klein
You can give that to me. I’ll bring you back.
[00:03:19.610] – Phil Rawlings
Okay. I got kicked out of the engineering program at Utah State, and I went down to the University of Utah in Salt Lake, and I’ve been around the Salt Lake area since then.
[00:03:35.010] – Big Rich Klein
So you were really young when you were in Preston then?
[00:03:40.030] – Phil Rawlings
Yes, from four to about seven to eight. But that’s where my family, that’s where my dad’s family is from.
[00:03:49.220] – Big Rich Klein
Okay. For those of you that are listening that don’t know where Preston is, that is, I believe, where they shot Napoleon Dynamite.
[00:03:59.480] – Phil Rawlings
Yeah. In fact, Uncle Rico’s van, that was my cousin and his buddy’s van in high school.
[00:04:07.220] – Big Rich Klein
Nice. Yes. That’s cool. So then you’re real young years in Preston, and then you moved to Burley. And how long were you in Burley?
[00:04:21.710] – Phil Rawlings
I was about 12. And then we moved to Logan for my dad to go back to school and finish up schooling.
[00:04:33.310] – Big Rich Klein
So was your dad chasing jobs then? Is that why the moves?
[00:04:38.350] – Phil Rawlings
Yeah. My dad, he didn’t finish his college degree when we lived, I guess they lived in Logan before I was born, and he didn’t finish his degree and moved to Salt Lake. And so this was him going back to finish his degree. And he was driving propane truck and managing a V1 propane station in Burley. And he started that in Preston and was transferred up to Burley. And just it was too rough. He messed up his back, and those trucks didn’t have good suspension back then. Right.
[00:05:20.840] – Big Rich Klein
And then so you did your high school years in Logan?
[00:05:25.020] – Phil Rawlings
Yes, high school years in Logan, start of college there, and then I was forced out of the engineering program. READ MORE
