Three of us left. Twenty-five kiosks. One more big idea.

Chapter 1

Two kids who grew up together

Dad and Mom had known each other since they were about five years old. Her name was Audrey. They grew up together, and they would go on to be married fifty years.

Dad did not grow up ranching, but homesteading was in his blood: he came from a family of homesteaders who had built their lives out of raw land. As a young man, when he and Mom were both just seventeen, they bought land of their own together in the Peace River Country of Alberta.

Dad went on to become a real estate developer, and a good one. Then he did something most people never would: he gave it all up and moved his three sons out to that land, so we would grow up close to the ground, the way his own family had.

We called it the Triple R Bar Ranch. Our brand was a Lazy R over a 3, and the 3 stood for the three of us boys, oldest to youngest: Darcy, Dean and Todd.

Chapter 2

Cattle of our own

Dad did not hand us cattle. He showed us how to get our own. He steered each of us boys toward young farmer loans, walked us through applying, and helped us buy our first head of cattle with money we had borrowed and had to pay back ourselves.

They were ours to feed, ours to doctor, ours to worry over. We learned to calve in the cold, to haul water and hay when the snow was deep, to ride the range and check the fences, because one broken wire can cost you a whole herd by morning. And we learned the hardest lesson a young rancher learns: some of them do not make it, no matter how hard you try. You grieve a little, you get up the next day, and you do the chores anyway.

Nothing about it was easy. Up before daylight to chop ice off the water troughs. Fixing fence with frozen fingers and whatever wire was in the truck. Keeping old equipment running with baling wire and stubbornness. Long days in the saddle, longer nights in calving season, and years when the weather or the market took more than it gave. Out there, nobody is coming to save you. You figure it out, you make do, and you make it work.

“Always drink upstream from the herd.”Old cowboy saying

Those cattle were our first businesses, and that loan was our first lesson in debt. We fed them through the winter, watched them grow, took them to market, made our payments, and learned exactly what they cost and what they were worth. Nobody called it being an entrepreneur back then. It was just what you did when something was yours.

What the ranch taught us

• Nothing gets done unless you do it. The cattle do not care that it is forty below.
• Check your fences. Small problems left alone become big ones overnight.
• Waste nothing. You fix what breaks and you find a use for what you have.
• Keep your word. A handshake meant something on the Triple R Bar, and it still does.
• Stick together. Out there, family is all you have.

“There’s nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.”Old cowboy saying

Dad never stopped being an entrepreneur, even on horseback. He taught us to see what a thing could become instead of what it was: a quarter section of bush as a hayfield, a scrawny calf as next fall’s paycheque. We did not know it then, but that is the whole idea behind POD ON ME.

Chapter 3

Portland, coffee, and our first kiosks

Darcy went south to play university baseball in Portland, Oregon. He came home with more than a glove: he had seen what coffee could be, with people lining up at little stands and drive-thrus everywhere. Back home, nobody was doing it yet.

So we did. We built our own portable coffee bars with our own hands, and with Dad backing us all the way. Then, about thirty years ago, we bought a fleet of retired FedEx drop-off kiosks and turned some of them into drive-thru coffee stands, years before drive-thru coffee was on every corner in Canada. Dean was a partner in all of it.

The rest of the kiosks went back to the ranch to wait for their turn.

Chapter 4

The storm

In April 2006, we lost Dean in a motorcycle accident.

There are no words for what that did to our family. The ranch had been built for three sons, and now there were two. Not long after, Dad sold the Triple R Bar.

He sat us down and told us the truth as he saw it: staying on the ranch to carry it on would only hold us back. He wanted us out in the world, building things of our own, the way he always had. So, with his blessing, we went.

“Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway.”Attributed to John Wayne

Chapter 5

Building our own lives

We did what Dad raised us to do. Together we built and ran a big car wash in Vancouver, British Columbia. Darcy built a Japanese vehicle import business that keeps him busier than ever, and his sons worked alongside him for years. Todd started Amazon Thunder, a nutraceutical company built around the acai berry, in 2005, and grew it from nothing into a successful company before closing it in 2018. He went on to build online companies, including Bro.com, Dude.com, Delicious.com, GermProof.com, Coconut.com, Names.com and Shirts.com.

None of it came easy. There were long nights, lean years, deals that fell through and ventures that did not make it. Every one of us has had to start over at least once. But ranch kids know how to get back on the horse, and we always did.

Through all of it, the kiosks sat on Dad’s land. Every time one of us went home, we saw them, and every time we said the same thing: someday we are going to turn those into something.

Chapter 6

Mom

In November 2016, we lost Mom to a brain stem tumor.

Audrey knew Dad from the time they were five. She was seventeen when they bought that land together, and she stood beside him for fifty years of marriage, through every move, every venture and every storm. She was the heart of the Triple R Bar, and she still is.

Chapter 7

Through every storm

We have been through more than our share: losing a brother, losing our mother, losing a baby, walking away from the ranch we grew up on. We will not pretend it was easy.

But looking back, we can see it clearly. God has had our backs the whole way, carrying us through the trials, the storms and the losses, and leading us to where we are today. We would not be standing here without that, and without each other.

Chapter 8

The next generation

Our kids are grown, or nearly there, and they are the best thing any of us has ever built.

Darcy’s two sons grew up in the family business. Kei Reum pitched NCAA Division I baseball at Fordham and the University of Nebraska Omaha, and he is now playing baseball in Australia, carrying on the love of the game his dad brought home from Portland. Jayce is a farrier here at home, keeping the horse-and-hoof side of our ranch roots alive.

Todd has a family of his own and two daughters about to finish high school. His son Dawson was born an identical twin; his brother Sebastian was stillborn. Dawson carried both of them forward. He finished at the top of his class, graduated this year, and is heading into engineering.

Our hope is that our kids will be part of POD ON ME too, so that what started on the Triple R Bar keeps going long after us.

Chapter 10

Dad’s answer

Dad is 81 now, and fighting multiple myeloma the way he has fought everything in his life: like a Viking. He did not hesitate.

“I’ll sell them to you for nothing. You guys go for it!”

We said no.

“We’ll pay you, Dad, and you’re getting a good cut. You’ve been there our whole lives. We wouldn’t be where we are today if it weren’t for you.”