Transcript
The Jacobsen Group with Jon Jacobsen · Mon May 6, 2024
Hello, this is John Jacobson and welcome to this podcast of The Jacobson Group.
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It's where Iowa comes to talk.
News Talk 1540 KXEL.
spring has sprung, we dodged some terribly inclement weather across the Hawkeye State, and now we are terming into a beautiful springtime season here.
John Jacobson reporting to John Jacobson.
Group here, Iowa and Nebraska on KXEL, KXCB Networks.
So honored that you have joined us again today here.
live on Saturday, and a special thanks to all of our listeners, all of our supporters, this ensemble, this group, which includes the great Mike Shane, engineer with us today, of course, as always, this ensemble group.
A week ago at the Iowa Broadcast News Association,
annual convention and awards swept through the entire categories of large market radio awards winning an unprecedented 11 awards 53 total.
for this team but 11 awards including in large market radio sweeping every award for overall sports coverage first second and third winning first place for best sports cast sweeping both political coverage categories and winning in other categories as well including font news best news cast feature
agriculture and flooding.
My goodness, it was just a tour de force and I want to thank all of our great colleagues and today as we
carry this momentum forward.
You know,
guys, May Day was the old traditional communist celebration where the old Soviets and communist Chinese would roll out their tanks and have the big May Day parade.
That was the Workers Unite Marxist holiday.
Well, we counter that here annually with our program.
We select two.
annual awardees for Heartland Heroes the Adam Smith Award for excellence in free market enterprise.
Our Nebraska winner that we'll be talking about here momentarily is Maddo Daniel Honda out of Omaha.
But first up our Iowa winner for best product, best service, best citizenship, the great people at
Haynes Homes, a wonderful multi-generational business founded by those great American veterans from World War II, the late great Kurt and Norma Haynes.
And we are so glad to again be joined today with us, a worthy custodian of that mantle and a well-named
Curtis Haynes.
Curtis, welcome back to the show.
It's a great day to be
an American.
Absolutely.
I'm very glad the invisible hand has guided me to this show today.
You know you're Adam Smith very well.
Well, you know what?
We're living in an era where...
Some of our kids are confused on college campuses on a variety of fronts.
Some are even confused about the virtues of a free market economy.
We know that the free market enterprise economy have caused the greatest proliferation of affluence and wealth and freedom and liberty in the history of man.
while Marxist, godless, atheist communism and socialism have caused every genocide beginning in the 20th century and have been responsible for the murders of well over 100 million people just during the era of World War II and the Cold War.
So Curtis, it's great to have you with us today.
I want to talk about the wonderful, safe, beautiful, affordable homes that you have.
in eastern Iowa in southwest Cedar Rapids.
And one way to talk about it, if you go to that wonderful website, HamesHomes.com, H-A-M-E-S, H-O-M-E-S.com.
There's a great new article that's a few days old.
What happens when you buy a home at HamesHomes?
And it's a brilliant roadmap for just how easy it is.
to work with the great people at Hames, the Hames family, all hands on folks there to get that safe, affordable, beautiful housing that stands sturdy during the stormy weather that we've had in Curtis.
I saw some horrendous, tornadic activity.
in Western Iowa and what saved the lives of hundreds of people in the Omaha, Council Bluffs, Minton, Arlington, Bennington, Blair, Epley Airfield, Council Bluffs Airport areas.
with the early warning system that none other than our broadcast media in eastern Iowa put together a team after Palm Sunday tornadoes in eastern Iowa in 65 Conrad Johnson from WMT where you guys first advertise along with Grant Price and the station manager at WMT TV and FM now KGAN after those Palm Sunday tornadoes got together with all of the media, all the meteorologists and the national
weather service and designed the watch warning system that we now have in place.
I tell you Curtis, the Cedar Rapids, the epicenter of the country between putting the man on the moon with Rockwell Collins and saving lives with early weather prevention.
And now we've got you great people making what
It has to be one of the greatest virtues that ALIN can do, and that
is to provide home and heart for families.
I appreciate those
kind words for our town and for our company, John.
We're very excited about what we're doing here.
We do something that we think is a great combination of cutting edge and timeless here at Hames Homes.
It is, Curtis.
So let's say I am interested.
I'd like to be in the home.
purchasing market.
You know, sometimes that can be a little challenging, a little confusing, but you guys are the experts in sales and financing.
So let's start with the first bullet point, uh, applying for financing.
That always kind of scares people, but it need not with you guys.
What we like to do here at Hames is what we take a lot of pride in having a process that's simple.
What we want to do here, myself and my co-worker Clint in the sales department, is be educators.
People who are new to our industry, people who are first time home buyers, people who are retiring, different walks of life, different knowledge bases.
We're here to help anyone make the most intelligent.
decision for their housing.
We want to help people learn if they're not very savvy with home loans, mortgages, loans for our product.
We're very, very excited to give some guidance.
The application is kind of our first formal step in after we meet.
Visit, see if this type of housing is for you.
An application is no commitment, but it does allow us to look at income, credit,
and down payment, and it allows us to get some information to talk about what the best path is to get to the next step of homeownership.
This is absolutely wonderful.
And of course, online, you can look at that financing page at HaynesHomes.com or call them at 319-377-4863.
Let's move to another.
uh uh arrow in the quiver the community application Curtis
yes our we have we have a planned community so everyone who lives in a Haynes community owns their home we don't have rentals we don't have sub leasing what that us allows us to do they have a standard for everyone who comes to live we have a brief background check um and part of that is the community application we there may be some other
community that have a application cost, we have no charge there.
From there, looking
at
the applications, the next step is to take a look around and see if there's a home that fits your needs.
Our inventory is ever changing.
We think we do a very good job at keeping it current to fit homeowner needs and it's always going to be
correct on our website, and you're welcome to look around.
We have an open house format.
We love having people out.
Here with Curtis Haymes from Haymes Homes.
Well, so we've gone through this process for these beautiful homes here.
And Curtis, I think what we would like to talk about now that we've kind of done the financing and community applications and perhaps selected a home we like, how do we get the underwriter review and approval?
As we've looked at your creditworthiness through the process, Clinton and myself can make a suggestion as
to
which bank might be the best.
We have an in-house bank,
we
have local banks, there's national lenders, and we can make a suggestion as to which...
bank will offer the best terms at the most reasonable rates, and then either Clint or I will help submit it, or the homeowner will go to the bank themselves, different situations for different banks.
The bank will offer an approval within three business days, and from there we talk about our next steps on when to close, when to take possession.
This is one of the great advantages that the people at Haystown
Some, frankly, lending institutions are incredibly clunky.
Financing can be just a bear.
As someone who has worked alongside the banking industry for decades, I can tell you that's true.
But the Hames folks cut through the red tape, whether it's that zero cost application form or the three day turnaround on the.
review and approval is a huge advantage to work with the Haynes homes people.
Curtis, we're starting to see a division come clearly here into reality with closing dates.
People are going to get to a closing date.
Yep, is to choose a time to close that fits everybody's.
We need to get the home ready.
We need to.
sign
a
lease, and we need to make sure that the bank is on the same page.
So my co-worker or my self-client will be the liaison to put that all together.
From there, add the closing and community sign in.
You'll visit with the community management.
You'll visit with me.
We'll talk about our...
community guidelines.
We'll check out your home.
We'll do a new homeowner orientation.
We want to make sure that the homeowner is comfortable.
The home is functioning correctly.
They're settled into the community.
We don't, it's not a situation where it's set in and forget it.
We want to be your guide through the whole process to get started, to moving in, and that's handing you your keys.
This is so great.
You know, people know where they're...
factors, heat paper located, and when to change their furnace filters to get a look at the data plate in their home, which is very important summary that's unique to each manufacturer at home.
And Curtis, this is just so exciting.
I really urge our folks to come see you guys.
at the sales center at 5410 Wabash Street, Southwest.
They're open seven days a week.
And of course,
that
website, that wonderful website, HaynesHomes.com
and the
legacy Marion number 319-377-4863.
Curtis, I want to key in on this because I was reporting outside the town of Minden, Iowa, which was flattened by a tornado a couple miles wide several days ago.
A town I used to represent a legislature with 600 wonderful citizens and literally it looked like the big bomb hit.
Everything is laid waste and fully half the town
is
literally leveled.
Well, what's interesting is we try to build our homes as safely as possible.
I'm always so incredibly impressed that during the derecho, when we had tornado force wins, your beautiful manufactured homes with good, the ultimate test.
Well, our
heart goes out.
And our prayers go to everyone in western Iowa and eastern Nebraska that went through all of that last week.
We're thinking of all of you and thank you for the kind words about our product.
We're
tested, we're engineered, we're set up correctly.
We have guidance from the state of Iowa to set up our homes.
Southwest Side of Cedar Rapids saw 140 to 150 mile an hour of dust during
that
derecho of up to an hour.
We didn't lose any homes.
Everybody hung in there.
It was very safe, well engineered.
well-set up, one of our liabilities in our industry over the last 30 years has become a real reliability.
We're very proud at how safe and secure our homes are.
Indeed it is, Curtis Haynes, and I encourage everybody to go take a look there at
summit view and grand view.
Folks, it's green, it's lush, the landscaping.
You've got beautiful shrubbery.
You've got rolling planes of green grass, street lights, American flags.
These are wonderful, safe communities.
And of course, the headquarters there at Haines, you can always find it because they're flying old glory, our Iowa flag and the homage to our MIA.
proud to salute these heroes in our heartland.
Iowa's pre-market enterprise annual salute
and
award recipient.
The good folks at Cames Homes.
Curtis, always a pleasure to visit with you.
Give our best to all of your familial colleagues at the Great Family Enterprise.
Hope to see you soon.
Very good.
Thank you again.
Great to visit with you all.
John Bigamson back with you O'Daniel Honda Day today.
It is their fourth annual event and boy, is it a great event.
Honda Pro Jason is here.
You can register to win a Moto Craft O if you go ahead and do a test drive.
Again, we thank you O'Daniel folks because guys, many of you know this ensemble here.
at the Jacobson Group literally swept every category of awards for large market radio at the Iowa Broadcast News Association awards convention and banquet a couple Saturdays ago out in Johnson suburb of Des Moines this ensemble won for public affairs farm and agriculture feature literally swept
First, second, third, cleaned up in overall sports excellence, took first and second, swept in political coverage, won in spot news, took first place for best sports cast, and also won for news cast.
11 awards, 53 total by this ensemble over the years, we thank the folks at O'Donnell Hunter for that sponsorship to think
that
we won in large market going up against all those giant behemoth
AMF and Blowtorches in Des Moines, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Sioux City is a really great testament to this crew, including our engineers, Dick Burris and Mike Shane, who is inimitable of ringtone
you're
hearing right now.
Who can forget that great ringtone from the 70s and 80s?
Well guys, this is very, very exciting today.
this Saturday we've come through some really tough weather and now the fourth annual O'Daniel Honda Carme featuring Honda Pro Jason and they're open today until 3 p.m.
here on this fine Saturday they're gonna unveil the brand-new all-electric Honda 2024 prologue with Honda Pro Jason and I couldn't be happier than to have with me here part of the dynamic duo
of O'Daniel Brothers, Mr. Michael O'Daniel.
Mike, what a great day for O'Daniel Honda.
This is becoming quite a thing, these festive Saturdays outdoors here at 78th and Dodd, just a block south at Beverly.
Yeah, the car shows our sales manager, Bono, has put him together and they've been well attended, well supported by Omaha.
We look forward to him every year.
Omaha has been great to us as a family and as a car dealership.
And yeah, I can't say
enough about how excited we are about being here today.
Well, Mike, as you know, the lovely, gracious Mrs. Jacobs and I have purchased 24 cars in 22 years, counting corporate cars, cars for kids, leases.
We've been through the whole gamut, you know, when we lived out in the country, we needed the ridgeline because we needed some of the four-wheel drive cars when we had some of the
high inflation with gas prices.
We went with the Civics and the Accords for the high school and college age kids.
We've got some of the pre-owned cars that you have, some of which weren't even Hondas, but almost all have been Hondas.
And when we had all three kids in the car seats at the same time, we had the big oddities that we've been through.
And right now I love my passport, and I love the driver protections of the passport.
Make sure I'm not creeping up too much on the person in front of me on IE80 that I'm not weaving out of my lane.
It warns me, it keeps me awake.
And the loving, gracious, horse whisper herself.
This is Jacobson.
She's getting over 30 miles a gallon with her HRV.
She's rocking that HRV, which she likes as much as the CRV.
We've had just about every make and model, Mike.
We started dating in the Civic.
graduated to an accord and got buried in a prelude.
So we love you Daniel family and we're saluting you today because as we pointed out the beginning of the show we've got a lot of confusion on our college campuses today in a lot of different areas including socialism and communism versus free market enterprise and we love our free market system here it's produced the highest prosperity wealth and liberties
for people in the history of the world, whereas Marxist, atheists, communism, and socialism has enslaved and impoverished and been responsible for genocides just in the 20th century that murdered more than 100 billion people.
So we salute you guys today as our Nebraska business heartland hero as a free market enterprise excellence for for best product, best service, and best citizenship.
You guys really are great corporate citizens.
Your family has always carried that mantle very proudly, Mike.
Yeah, we've been really fortunate in Omaha here to have the customers that we have that keep coming back to us and buying cars from us and also to have the employees that we've had over the years.
You know, none of this would be possible without people that
have
worked for us in the past and work for us now.
You know, Omaha is a great town.
This business started with my grandfather in Kentucky.
He brought his five kids and wife here to work in an old football dealership downtown Starnum and Oles.
My grandfather had, I'm not sure that he finished high school, but he could sell cars and came here and eventually bought Starnum and Oles.
It was downtown on Hardney Street and then moved it out here, I think in about 66 or 67.
And,
you
know, the area that we're in right now, 78th and Dodge, was basically out in the country.
And the lot here was an old gravel parking lot with a, oh, so guys sold used cars.
And I believe there's a chicken coop on the lot too.
And he built the Oldsmobile dealership here.
And, you know, my dad and his brother worked here for a long time.
And my dad passed away a few years ago, and it's been me and my brother now lately.
with uh... with honda uh... and you know the people in Omaha have been great honda spend great is probably one of the best uh... car manufacturers to represent you know we've represented quite a few others but uh... you know honda always provide this with quality product uh... quality people to support that product uh... good parts uh... you know and uh... it would feel really fortunate to have a brand you know what with with john if if we can get in one honda uh... you're going to keep buying honda
They're a great car and it's been interesting to watch the car industry go through COVID and some of the other changes we've seen lately.
A lot of manufacturers pulled back and didn't give their customers and their dealers new product or anything like that.
Honda, we got a new Honda Pilot, we got a new CR-V recently.
Those have been great and people love them.
I'm driving a new pilot right now.
All three of my kids have bought a new pilot for the last two years.
When John talks about all the vehicles he's owned, I don't know that I'll ever buy 22 new cars, but I was finally able to get my wife out of her old CRV.
She's drove CRVs her whole life.
was fond of the 5-speed CRVs, which I quit making about 20 years ago.
So I've been nursing along a 2003 CRV 5-speed for years and years and years.
It's got about 230,000 miles on it.
Finally got her switched over to a Ridgeline here a couple months ago.
I
love the Ridgeline, and those are great tailgating vehicles.
Michael, Daniel.
Yes, they are.
They've got the trunk in the back, and I've seen a lot of people take that trunk and make it into a cooler.
There's a couple plugs in that trunk.
You can drain the water out of it.
It's got a 110 plug in the bed.
You can plug your big steam TV into it if you want to.
And on some of the newer ones, you can Bluetooth the sound into the truck bed audio system and really have a neat way to watch a football game or something like that.
Back to your truck.
It's been a great truck for us here.
We're here with Mike O'Daniel, part of the Dynamic Duo.
The Honda O'Daniel brothers that are the custodians of this next generation of this multi-generational family business, both Mike and Matt, so active with their families and in the communities, they really embody everything that Adam Smith loved about free market economics and a free market economic system.
And you know what I love to tell people is we all know Honda's are very, very reliable.
a guy like me who doesn't know wrenches and doesn't know how to fix those computers they don't need servicing they run forever and very low maintenance but they also get great great gas mileage especially with gas prices up and then the financing mechanisms here their rates here are better than any bank in the area they have great financing here and the safety ratings are so superb on the Honda and what you can't
really quantify, is this great service department?
The folks at O'Daniel, one thing I admire, they have very little turnover.
They have a very loyal cadre of employees.
They take great pride.
I'm always edified by the service department.
I get all of my service done here.
They're always able to fit you in.
And of course, they've got that great website.
And so when you put it all together, the other thing might that I remind people is,
There's not a more American car than Honda.
These cars are made here in the USA.
Yeah, Honda's been making cars in the United States since I think about 86 or 87.
Yep,
some people still don't realize that.
I keep having to remind some of these old folks.
These are American as can be.
Yeah, yeah, Honda has car manufacturing plants in the United States.
They have engine manufacturing plants in the United States.
They have transmission manufacturing plants in the United States.
My brother and I went to Tennessee, I think it was, to tour a civic assembly plant.
And in the
plant, and it's not just that they take a bunch of parts out of boxes and make the cars, they were actually stamping the sheet metal in the plant and making sheet metal parts for the cars, assembling shocks and struts.
And it was neat to see the assembly line because you could watch the car bodies coming down and you could see people putting parts on them and assembling cars.
You know, you'd be watching him and then have a big box of struts next to someone who's bolting him on the car and you're watching.
And he's down to the last strut and you think he's going to run out, the line's going to stop.
And about the time he takes the last strut out of that box, here comes a robot down the trolley right next to him and takes the old box of struts away and drops off the new box of struts.
And the line just keeps going.
And
we
got to see them, they would build these cars and put the doors on them and assemble them and then the doors would come back off and they would be shuttled off to the side of the normal car by going to the paint area and they would paint these doors and then the same doors that were on the car before would meet the car after being painted and go back on the car.
And the organization of that plant and the cleanliness and the processes there, the people that were there,
was amazing to see.
It made us believe that we were representing the correct brand and representing a company that understood the car business, understood what people wanted in their cars, and strove to continually understand what people wanted.
A lot of people see the Honda Odyssey minivan right now, and it's been a great product for us.
It was not something that Honda always had, and I was in the service department working when the Honda Odyssey came to be.
And one of the interesting stories I heard from somebody at Honda, and I can't, I don't know if this is true or not, but it's Honda was studying the minivan market and what people wanted in a minivan because Honda wanted to build a van that people wanted to buy.
And I heard a couple stories that Honda would take video cameras.
and set up outside of schools and places like that.
And they wanted to study people, loading their kids in and out of vans and seeing them.
And I think they were met by the police a couple times.
Yeah.
But in the Japanese, in the Honda way of thinking, they wanted to study how people use the minivan.
And then they wanted behavioral science.
They
wanted to build the van that people wanted to use.
the people that could study that maybe weren't quite as socially adept to, you know, American ways.
But, you know, Honda's always stroked to build the product that people want.
You know, they don't just build what they think they should build.
And, you know, it's made for, you know, a great relationship we've had with the company.
And, you know, customers love the cars too, you know.
Oh,
we love them for sure.
And, you know what?
We always joke in our radio parking lot.
it's Honda Row there, because John Stewards bought a Honda, the Corey's have bought, David Overholster's bought, the Jacobson's have bought, Chip Readman's have bought, the whole radio ensemble basically buys from O'Daniel Honda and does their service here.
John Jacobson here with you, we're from our KXCB studio and it's a beautiful Saturday of the honor being here with
Michael O'Daniel, Mr. Michael O'Daniel, part of that brother-brother team of Matt and Mike that are the owners, proprietors, custodians of the great O'Daniel Honda legacy here in Omaha.
And of course, you can shop online.
I know people come from all over to purchase from Matt O'Daniel, including our Des Moines listeners.
We've got Des Moines folks that come in here.
You can literally shop online.
at O Daniel Honda dot com O Daniel Honda dot com service departments open all day yet to today on Saturday till four o'clock but hey let's talk a little bit about what's going on today you got festivities you got food and drink outside today
yeah we've got on the pro Jason we've got the new prologue here we've got the car show
I always enjoy walking down the road there and talking to some of the people that are here and having them tell me about what they've done to their cars.
We've got the Moto Compact on display.
I did a tour of that in the interior.
I was scaring Matt, I think, when he saw me tooling around all the cars parked in the showroom.
Yeah, the Moto Compact is kind of a neat little scooter.
You know, it'll go 14, 15 miles.
Nice, we've got them here actually in Stockswood.
If you come in and pay for it, you can walk out the door with one today.
Well, walk out like it's in a suitcase, literally.
It literally is a small suitcase.
Like the
Jetsons from years ago, the cartoon where George would fold up this car into a suitcase.
Yeah, exactly, you know, and it'll go 12 miles and, you know, it'll go at a decent speed where you can get around.
If I'd have had that as a
political
candidate,
think of it how much more quickly I could have gone door to
door.
oh yeah yeah you could have just buzzed right down the block and you know and it's actually you know getting back to the Honda philosophy it's actually a usable small little electric scooter we were
Wisconsin with my daughter and we were downtown we're gonna go see a Milwaukee Braves game and you see the electric scooters all over the place and we were waiting to pull out onto the street and we watched the gal come down the street
on one of these little stand-on electric scooters and she hit a manhole cover and just went end over end and it was it was hard to watch and you know thinking about the Moto Compacto it's a small suitcase you sit on it if she'd have been on that that wouldn't happen you know
yeah the Honda technology is always several steps ahead and I'm just thinking you know I love it's great you can come out here get a hot dog get a burger get some
So to pop get some chips get get some cookies, but uh, uh, Honda pro J sensor.
Tell me a little bit about this, uh, electric car, the pro log.
Yeah, we have the Honda pro log.
It's, it's similar, but it's somewhere between the Honda passport and the Honda pilot.
Um, these inside.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Decent size on the inside, um, available to a drive or a drive, um, you know, a lot of technology in the car.
You know, I like to think of it as an electric car, but it's also a Honda.
So it's, it's.
going to be, you know, funded drive, you're going to see all the things and that you'd expect in a Honda on the lot too.
It's not a small, special one-off car.
Honda has a lot of unique features in the car.
We've done a lot of training here with our service staff, our sales staff, so that they're prepared and to answer all your questions.
Hunter Pogeson, while he's here, he'll be doing some training with everybody.
Here at the dealership, you know, I'd like to think that
you
know the
employees that we have here you know when we've got great people working for us I can't say enough about everybody that you know is here now and has worked for us in the past you know they've made this you know what it is today a lot more than me and my brother have and you know the people at Omaha too are great but you know the prologue is going to be a great electric car and you know Honda's got some
Features built into it that are going to make it a little easier to own and a little easier to drive this an electric car You know and what you you know if you're thinking about one come down here and see it today
I'm intrigued.
I want to learn more about this.
You know my wife and I Got one of the first hybrids back.
I want to see it was oh four or oh five We got a silver Accord hybrid and that was our first touch with I know Johnny Stewart one of our radio Confers here currently has
And the electric I think it's the civic that he got from you guys
and he
gets just incredible gas mileage on that just incredible He never puts gas in that thing and that's the hybrid version.
So I'm very intrigued about that guy if you ride that moto compact so that is so fun guys and But you know, it's very festive out here So it like a taste of Omaha.
You got folks a lot of folks come in from South Omaha.
You've just got a lot of interest here
in the different cars.
There's a lot of good music playing.
You see some really great older model, light model cars in the lot here.
Very festive.
Mike, what I kind of grin about is if I close my eye
and I
listen to you and your brother Matt, your voice patterns are almost identical.
The cadence of your voices, your intonation and flexion.
I don't know if anybody's ever told you that, but it's really hard to separate
as a radio guy your voice audio tracks from your brothers you guys could switch places if you needed to oh
yeah i don't think anybody's ever said that to me before you know um and kind of back to the electric cars a little bit yeah things people might not know you know honda was i think the first company to bring a hybrid car to the market they beat the friars but if you want they did
i remember that they
had a small little two-seat car and it was called the honda insight
and had a little free cylinder, believe it or not, gas water in it.
There was a lot of neat technology in it.
And
the car was very light, aluminum structure all over the car.
The glass was thinner.
Honda went all out with that thing to make it
as
fuel efficient as possible.
And when that car was...
in his heyday I was in the service department and we'll get to talk to people that owned them and you know I had more than one person tell me that that car you know it had a miles miles per gallon indicator on it and that if you were to drive from Denver to Omaha you know and it's kind of downhill close to that trip and the wind is usually from the west to the east and I had a couple people tell me that if they you know they got a good tailwind
on the interstate and they get in behind a semi, you know, the miles per gallon meter on the car went up to 99.
Oh my
goodness.
I
had people telling me that they could get that thing up to 99 miles to the gallon and keep it there, you know, with a good tailwind coming back from Denver.
Did you hear that, David Overholster?
Dave's always bringing the odyssey from Denver back to here.
I don't think he's quite at 99, but he is in his by and hold Honda there.
That's just a magnificent story, Mike.
I cannot say enough about your service department.
We get all of our cars serviced here because you know it gets done right and you don't want to mess with someone who's not a Honda dealer because these cars are specialized.
I talk about even the windshields and the whole apparatus for the directional control and the lane change notifications and the computer systems, the oil changes.
It really makes sense to come here and
Every time Mike, you know, I've got one of the craziest schedules on the planet.
These guys always find a way to work us in before we ever get in the harm's way.
Yeah, our service department's been great.
I've got a lot of technicians down there that have been with me since all since close to when I started here, you know, they've worked through it to master tax, you know There's a couple guys down there that I can think of one in particular, you know, I went to a high school graduation and
He's worked for us.
He's been to all the Honda training.
He's a master tech.
He fixes a lot of cars for us, makes a lot of people happy.
You know, and he's got several guys over there that, you know, have, are his friends and have kind of gone through the same track.
You know, Honda provides a very rigorous training program.
They had a training center in Denver for a long time.
That's then moved to Dallas.
And, you know, every quarter, Honda gives us seats in that training center and we max them out trying to train, you know,
everybody as much as we can you know that the training with Hondas is very good it's very important that these guys understand how much technique technology is changing electric cars you know some of the different ways you know the and I'll bore you with my service back from both the way that you know the door switches talk to the computer in the car and the way the radio talks to your phone and and that that technology changes you know
You're
comparing that to the 69 Kerman Gia Volkswagen and the 69 Pontiac Bonneville that I drove when I was in high school.
It's like going from Fred Flintstone's automobile to the Apollo 11.
Yeah, for people out there that, you know, remember those cars, you know, it was and I'll I guess be a little bit technical and
It
was
all powers and grounds back then, and now even the power window switch will talk to the computer in the car and then talk to the power window motor the same way your phone would talk to a cellular network or your computer would talk to the internet.
It's all that kind of communication in cars now.
In some ways it's more complicated, but the ability of the car to help us and tell us what it does it like and what's wrong with it is also greatly
improved over the years and you know these guys need to understand how to put them into diagnostic mode how to get those troublescoats out what they mean and how to diagnose it how to fix them and and the
crew I've
got down there in the shop you know from the service advisors the technicians you know to the catcher and service manager you know it's you know unless you're doing that training and doing it as much as you can possibly do you're not going to keep up you know
here with a great Michael Daniel and see
guys
This is why every Starship Enterprise needs a Montgomery Scott, chief engineer Scott on board.
Mike's got this wonderful service background and you know he and Matt are such a great one-two punch.
I was looking at some of your specials.
You guys got some tremendous specials going on right now.
It looks to me like there's a Ridgeline lease at $2.99 a month with $2,000 down.
Am I saying that right?
I believe that's correct.
You know, the Ridgeline's been a great vehicle for us, you know.
I can remember going to one of the original ride and drives with it, and one of the unique features of Ridgevine is, you
know,
it's got different driving modes that will help you from getting it stuck.
And I went with my brother, and one of the challenges they had, Honda had a big, oh, I'd call it a big stand pit.
And our challenge was to get it into the stand pit and get it stuck.
And, you know, the normal way we thought of doing it is, you know, we could...
approach the sand pit goes fast as we could and as soon as we got in it just stand on the brakes and see if you get this thing you know buried up to the doors and we did and we put it into a oh-hand-a-head like a sand mode switch and transmission in the sand mode you could sit there and put your foot on the gas and the engine wouldn't really rev up much but it would slowly apply power to the different wheels and it would slowly walk that truck up out of the sand and you'd drive out the other side
You know, we were, we spent a whole day at the riding drive and they had a tractor with a chain over there to pull somebody out if they ever did completely get one stuck and it never moved all day long.
Nobody was ever able to stick one of those trucks in the sand.
It was really neat to see.
What great stories here with Michael Daniel, the part of the two brother dynamic duo and O Daniel Honda here in Omaha.
Get out here today on this Saturday.
get some food, drive the Moto Compact around, register, take a look at the new prologue, the new all-electric vehicle.
Honda Pro Jason, very famous, you've seen him in a lot of different venues, is out here and the great team has got some tremendous specials going on right now.
And again, we thank Daniel Honda.
They have sponsored this ensemble to a complete sweep of the Iowa Broadcast News Association Awards.
For large market radio, we're competing against all the large market.
If you're enjoying this KXEL podcast, then we invite you to listen to KXEL's great programming in real time too.
You can hear us on the radio, statewide at AM 1540 and in the Cedar Valley at FM 100.5.
We stream live on the web, not only through KXEL.com, but also through our free KXEL mobile app.
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It's where Iowa comes to talk, News Talk 1540, KXEL.
We are going, this is the Saturday broadcast of the program and we're really saluting our free market economy because as you know, May 1st was always May Day for the communists and they had their big military parades on May 1st and we see some confusion on our college campuses.
We're extolling the virtues.
of the free market enterprise system and no one does that better than the O'Daniel family.
Mike, I'm proud of your family because you guys have always been a great influence to the community.
Backing our churches, backing education, backing loyalty to employees.
I've seen you here.
You're helping feed a small city of employees.
I see a young man like Peter Bull from whom we've bought, I think 12 cars now.
He's raising a family now.
He's got children.
He's married and all these people that you've brought along, they continue to progress and they're loyal to the brand here as well as the family.
You've really built a very edifying community and that means a lot to consumers like me to see that continuity.
It's really a great thing.
Yeah, it's, you know, we see it as a tremendous responsibility to, you know, we've got a lot of great people at work for us and
We've had a lot of great people who worked for us over the years and retired from us.
Sure.
And to retire from a car dealership is not a real comment.
No,
it's
not.
It's not.
And I've seen that.
Your people literally will retire when they get to be of that age.
Yeah.
Yeah,
we had a retirement party for our office manager, Chris, last year.
We had a retirement party for a parts manager.
You've been with us since he was a teenager.
Wow.
I think last year and, you know, the replacement.
Parts manager for Doug when he retired is somebody that Doug trained Wow Justin is now our part man parts manager.
He started to work.
He started to work for me out in the shop as a car jockey Wow, you know a young kid and wanted to try and be a mechanic You know for a while and he did that and then he decided he wanted to work on parts counter and we got him back there and eventually he worked his way up to parts manager and he's got a wife and some kids now and
You know, I feel really, really fortunate to have the people that work for us here, you know, from, you know, the shop to, you know, the gals that answer the phones do a great job.
You know, the gals up here in the office will get your paperwork done.
And the financing is not this crowbar to the head.
Gone are those days of all of the fear of having to sit down and negotiate with the finance guy.
So it's a very easy process here to talk to the guys who are like, Jerry, your chance to get the paperwork done.
Yeah, Jerry and Chance do a great job in there.
Honda usually provides us some really good financing, some really good lease offers.
Tremendous.
Our best financiers always come to American Honda Finance, not from the banks.
And you guys really make it easy.
And even though we're in a high-rate environment right now, because inflation with the Fed is doing, you guys have some really competitive rates.
Yeah, yeah, Honda does a really good job with helping their dealers out.
And I know our general sales manager, Urbano, has worked very hard to develop and maintain a relationship with with American Honda Finance and with, you know, American Honda is a car company too.
And, you know, some of these things, you know, like I said, I feel fortunate because people work for me, do a great job and help us with those relationships, you know, and
make it easier for us to, you know, help you get into a Honda or a used car,
you know, if
you want, or, you know, it's not about me and Matt here at the dealership, it's more about, you know, all the people at Workforce and the people at Omaha too, you know.
Mike, Michael Daniel, I agree, and another thing that really impresses me, this is a very, this workforce here is very emblematic and representative.
of the entire area here.
You have a lot of women in very important positions.
You have people from every creed and every racial and ethnic background here.
They like each other.
There's a good camaraderie here.
You know me, I'm here one way or another.
Well, I'm legendary for knocking off the coffee machine, even if I don't have an excuse to come in.
But with all that we do here, I'm in here a lot.
And you can't fake camaraderie.
These people like each other.
There's a cohesion here.
And in the auto business, especially in auto sales, that's not always the case.
You guys have built a culture here.
It's really, really edifying.
Yeah, and again, the people that work for us are really responsible for that.
You know, our name is on the sign, but it's the people that work here every day that sell the cars, sell the parts, you know, Maria and the gals that answer the phones and, you know, the guys in parts that make this work.
And I think Omaha is a great town to live in.
You know, these days you see a lot of stuff on the news, you know, on the East Coast and the West Coast and, you know, that make you question human nature a little bit sometimes.
I live close to where the tornado went through recently and you know we spent you know Friday afternoon and evening in the basement and
you know the
tornado passed about three quarters a mile from my house so the next morning I get up and I'm headed you know I go through Elkhorn I've got to go to town and you know the area like north and west of Elkhorn that just got wiped off the face of the earth
Over there,
you
know, there were so many people there to help at 9 30 in the morning that you couldn't hardly get through there I mean both sides of Maple Street had cars double parked on them
There's a
relevant center there that parking lot was full
and it
was all people that wanted to help, you know, I Think
you
know the Omaha is full of good people
and
the Midwest is a great place to live, you know where where these kind of things are, you know Normal for us here
for people to show up in health like that.
And it makes it a great place to live.
We're up here.
And you guys were in the community in 75 when that legendary tornado hit too.
So the family has some history there.
And Michael, Daniel, I urge everybody to get over here on Saturday the day.
We're going to be interviewing Honda Pro Jason coming up next.
This is a great tradition.
And I'm always amazed.
Hundreds of people show up for this.
Again, we're right at 78th and Dodge, just a block south at Beverly, but I encourage people to get over here yet.
We'll sign off at noon and we still got three more hours.
Yeah, yeah.
Great turnout and a lot of people here, a lot of neat cars.
Hot dogs and burgers are still there.
Oh yeah, come down here.
We'll feed you.
Have a good experience here.
Show you some new Hondas and you get to look at a lot of the built up Hondas that people bring in.
you know we see turbocharged civics and you know a lot of hot rods a lot of custom oh it's a great
site it's some really cool colors that you don't ordinarily see on the road
yeah Hondas as a company's been kind of conservative with their colors they'll step out of their comfort zone now and then but it's really neat to see what some of the people do with these cars after they get them and customize them and and you know show you what's possible and you know to make these cars
work when they go through the engines, turbo charge them, and do those things.
You know, there's a lot more work that goes into making those things actually run and drive than most people realize.
You know, I've watched guys in the shop put these cars together over the years, kids that work for me, and you know, I'd encourage you, you know, if you see a car on the lot here, you know, you'll probably see the owner standing next to it, and you'll probably be more than happy to tell you about
You know, putting the car together, the things work, things didn't work.
You know, if you're considering building one of these tune civics, come down here and talk to these, you know, the people that brought their cars in.
I'm sure that they'll be more than happy to tell you how to do it.
And, you know, you'll enjoy talking to them.
I can't remember when I've had so much fun
in an
interview.
And Mike, I just want to thank you and your family as sponsors of this ensemble here.
So literally,
clean up and knock out all those huge Iowa radio stations.
Some are iHeart, some are NRG.
A lot of these are affiliated with big radio across the United States.
And for us to reap all those excellence awards, we're kind of behaving like O'Daniel Honda.
Not the most gigantic Honda dealership in the United States, but categorically, absolutely.
I say O'Daniel Honda is the very best.
Honda dealership in the United States and we're proud that you are a sponsor and have been of our program.
We're really honored.
My goodness.
It's been wonderful to interview you today and we got to keep our family string intact.
The loving gracious Mrs. Jacobson is in the neighborhood and
She's scheming and plodding again.
I don't know what she's up to, but I have a hunch that Peter Bowles is going to be involved fairly soon.
Yep.
Yep.
You'll probably be driving a new one home today, but appreciate everything you've done for us here at the radio station, John.
It's been a great relationship and one that I know that made that both cherish.
And yeah, come on down to the car show today.
There's a lot of neat stuff here.
New
Hondas, used Hondas, used cars from all different makes.
Ride the Moto Compacto, see the prologue.
It will feed you if you come down here.
It should be a great day.
And the carrying machine is on.
I've checked both the Swiss myths and the coffee.
You can alternate if you need to.
So I've done the carrying inspection.
Looking good, Mike.
OK.
Well, thank you, John.
Thank you, guys, in the studio.
John Jacobson here with a great Michael O'Daniel, O'Daniel Honda.
Get down here today at our Openville Free festive occasion with food and great cars.
some chances to win some prizes.
Come on down, see us.
Back to you guys.
Mike, send us out with your inimitable Mike Shane ringtone.
We're going out to about 20 states by AM FM band today, but also listen live and also this is all going up on every podcast platform in the country.
This ensemble here, now you've heard it all in the Jacobson group, sweeping the Iowa Broadcasting Association Awards in 11 categories.
the other night, beating out many larger competitors for large market radio.
And we're
very grateful to O Daniel Honda for their sponsorship.
Well, we also salute them as one of the great free market enterprise champions of our economic system.
And we want to praise the American free market enterprise system much more virtuous.
then Communism with that the Reds all celebrated on May Day Communism this driven more people to poverty and Misery and war then any ideology in human history whereas our system has brought more liberty and economic affluence and wealth to folks and Also ingenuity today.
We've got back for our fourth straight year Honda pro James The studio audience is on their feet
i can hear them applauding right now jason honda pro jason were you ever honda amateur jason i was not honda amateur i was just jason before honda pro okay so honda pro jason you're here today it's saturday it's festive there's music there's always great souped up honda cars there's uh the moto compatria if you drive that yeah
You can, you know, if you take a test drive, you can maybe win a Moto Compact or the Prologue, the all electric car is there.
You're there.
They got hot dogs, coffee's on, burgers.
What today is standing out in your mind?
Are you the Prologue?
Is that your deal today?
Yeah, I absolutely love the new Honda EV called the Prologue.
It's 100% electric, 300 mile range.
It is outstanding.
The one we have here today
is an all-wheel drive version, so everyone here can come check it out.
If you're in the area, I highly suggest coming out.
Again, you can ride the EV scooter, the Moto Compacto.
There's a lot of stuff for kids to do, a lot of stuff for adults to do.
We have food, we have music.
We have everything today.
We really do.
You do, Honda Pro Jason, and these Omaha's come out.
They come from all over Omaha for this event.
We've got even Iowa.
Hey, people from Des Moines.
come in, you know, and some of you are listening to Cedar Abbs and Waterloo.
This is America's premier Honda dealership at O'Daniel.
And Jason, I'm sure you figure that out when you come into this community here.
I bought 24 Hondas in 22 years from O'Daniel.
Honda is strong.
That's strong.
I've been here four years and I'll definitely be coming back again.
I love this place.
Love the people, love the service, love the knowledge, everything about it, the excitement.
You're a big deal.
You're kind of
A bon vivant across the national media zeitgeist.
You're making all these public appearances.
You got social media.
What's it like being a Honda Rockstar?
I love it.
I absolutely love it.
I love traveling.
I love just spreading the Honda love and the knowledge they have about Honda products for everyone around the world.
Are you
ever
worried that a charismatic guy though like Urbano De Leon may steal your slot because he's quite charismatic.
I think he could go Hollywood.
We
could share.
There's plenty of love out there for all of us to share, right, Urbano?
That's right, but this is the thing, guys.
Honda Pro Jason could make the foundation so deep that it would be hard to match
it.
That's great.
Urbano De Leon, sales manager.
We just love having Honda Pro Jason here.
On this Saturday, come out to 7-Eight in Dodge, actually a block just south on Beverly, and come out the parking lot.
you can feel these wonderful hannahs on the lot and uh... uh... jason you're going to be there they can fight they can talk to you even autograph will be here selfies autograph actually drove my car my civic type are that fully modified all the way from chicago here just for this event to come out and see me and the honda whisperer of the lovely gracious debra jacobson
maybe
lurking in the neighborhood because she wants to buy another car now that she's by the grandkids you want to get that
car that can feed all the grandkids and their babies.
Does this mean we're going back to an odyssey or a pilot?
That's the one car I've never purchased.
I bought every of the models from the fifth to the prelude, the element.
Could it be a pilot?
What do you think, Jason?
I think it should definitely be a pilot.
Well, I'll tell you what you got to get out here today.
He's here till three o'clock Honda Pro Jason He's a big deal.
You've seen on TV.
You've seen him on social media You've seen him out here before come out for burgers for brats for coffee CDO Daniels get great financing in a high-safety rated car that needs no maintenance It gets super gas mileage.
It's very affordable with great financing and the service department rocks
the best service department ever.
Oh, Daniel Honda, Honda Pro-Jayson.
I see a line, a bevy of women right now standing in line, waiting for an autograph.
I better get out of the way.
Women and men.
Women and men.
Honda Pro-Jayson here, guys.
We're going to close out with our Bono Daily, and we're going to close out today and tell you all thank you for listening in.
It's been great to have you here today with us at
78th and Dodge O Daniel Honda.
This is John Jacobson for the entire crew saying enjoy these wonderful wonderful blessed days as we head to Pentecost during this Easter season be safe be smart be good be strong love Jesus Christ and God bless us everyone till we meet again grab us on the podcast
