Lee Greenwood on Music, Patriotism, and the Power of Lyrics

I could not find a job. I had a record contract that went south. I was living in the Valley and and having no money trying to support a family and realizing I had to do something other than sing. So I reached out to some people. I knew I said, I don't care where I go. What do I have to do stay in the country, but I will sing play dance stand my head on fire. Whatever I have to do in entertainment to make a living. I wanted to go to the thing that God had given me the gift for And eventually I crawled out of the despair joining us today. And baby innovators is the iconic country music singer Lee Greenwood renowned for his timeless hit. God bless the USA. The last year's career spending decades. Greenwood has left an indelible mark on the music industry. He has earned a Grammy Award at 33 singles on the hot country songs chart with seven of them reaching number one and has sold over 25 million albums worldwide released in 1984. God bless the USA has transcended its origins to become a cultural Touchstone. The song has resonated deeply with audiences played at national conventions political rallies during the 91 Gulf War and in the wake of the 9-11 attacks for countless Americans. The song has evolved into an unofficial Anthem embodying patriotism and national pride in moments of trial and trial alike. Greenwood's enduring legacy continues to inspire and unite listeners across the nation. This is very innovators and I'm your host Stevie Spence. Mr. Greenwood welcome to our program. Thank you very much. Well, it's great to have you here. There's so much to talk to you about. I definitely will talk to you about your signature song. But before that I want to get a sense of your growing up. What was the defining factor that made you go into into entertainment into singing, you know, God bless the USA. It's one of the seven songs that made us at number one. You have an enormous career, but I want to hear of the defining moment where you decided and you ended up going into into singing. Interesting that I was raised on a farm. My father joined the Navy right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor because that's World War two served four years in the Navy two years in the Merchant Marine. So my mother with me and my sister to raise Divorced my father and so we were raised on a farm. My sister and I my mother was a musician, but she was also a Comptometer operator. That is an early computer. She worked for Standard Oil of California. She was also a cleric for Southern Pacific Railroad and should play in the bars at night. You got to remember that during World War two everybody sacrificed. So they had very little and my grandparents were not any exception to that being sharecroppers. We didn't have a lot of land. So there wasn't a lot of money to go around. I didn't have much but I didn't know that I didn't have much I had all I needed and music came easy. So to answer your question, we had a little piano in our trailer that my mother used to practice before she went professional as a musician and so I would go and play the piano at night just because I liked it and I had before very long. I was able to play songs off the radio. I'm talking 9 10 11 years old and we only had a very small radio that I can get a couple of stations on. This is 1950 and so eventually I branched into a more musical career. I spent a year in Orange County while my mother had remarried to an Italian who I loved dearly before they passed and we built motels at Disneyland and I went to Anaheim High School in Orange County for a year or two learned more about music got a little deeper into music and learn some of the other instruments when I moved back to Sacramento to finish my school. I went to a Spanish high school Nordic Del Rio and I was a drum major for my high school marching band. I played in the orchestra timpani drums. I played saxophone in the dance band and I was drum major for the marching band. So that had lots of music courses. I worked in nightclubs at 15 years old and I would play in all the rock songs of my era because in those days every quartet had a saxophone player and I was the only one in Sacramento they wanted I was pretty good at the age of 15 and so graduated high school at 17 got my own band together and moved to Las Vegas Nevada where the money was and I stayed there 20 years. So that's just kind of a brief beginning. When you asked me about how music came into my life. I did sing in the First Baptist Choir since I was like 11 12 years old, but singing was not my focus music was my focus and I didn't really become what you would call a commercial singer and stand out in front of the band to sing till I was probably in my 20s interesting interesting. Well that takes me to the next question, which is I think your song God bless the USA transcends in so many ways transcends music transcends entertainment. It really goes beyond all of that. And I think a lot of it has to do with kind of the way you express it. Like you you kind of walk the talk right you really feel it. So tell us how did you come up with the words, you know the process you went through to create the song and the music. I've heard it said several times that the words are indelible. I'm not extremely prophetic and I would tell you that English was not a great subject for me. However, because in my early days, I didn't make an awful lot of money and sometimes I had to write letters to people about expressing my sympathy for not paying bills on time or whatever and I got pretty good at letter writing and and I got better at English because every time I knew how didn't know how to spell a word I get the dictionary and I look it up and so I'm actually pretty good spelling. And so the words and the and the dictionary and the encyclopedia brings me to a better understanding of geography. And when I wrote God bless you, I say you notice that I mentioned cities in God bless you, which which if you get out a compass and you look at Nashville, Tennessee, where I now reside and moved to in 1979. If you go from Nashville to st. Louis or Chicago or Virginia or Fort Lauderdale or Dallas, Texas, we're almost in the center of that hub. And so I'm I'm looking at the United States before I wrote God bless you. I say to find out how I encompass the entire country and remember this that I USA is maybe an umbrella for my career because it's the best known song I've ever had but it's not a parachute and I say that because I have 11 country songs that went number one drifting down. Dusty Dixie Road. I owe you more than life. Somebody's gonna love you. No matter what you do. I've lost her all the way this time. She's going going gone. And 36 student studio albums as a country artist employed by five different record companies. So that's first son and as a singer musician and then a writer and when I say God bless you, I say represent my entire career that may not be exactly true. I was a performer of a well-known performer in Nevada for 20 years from Reno and Lake Tahoe to Las Vegas and beyond and moving to Nashville, Tennessee and become a touring country artist. Then I discovered a wider breadth of the country that I could relate to because I'm only from the West Coast at first and so knowing that God bless the USA represented for me my love of the country and it certainly has taken on its own life after Song of the Year in 1985 for the Country Music Association the song that lifted America during the Gulf War presented by General Schwarzkopf before they went to war with Iraq the attack on America in 2001, which seems everybody had forgotten and I sang three times in New York City and you can Google the performance at Yankee Stadium twice once for the Farmers Memorial and then for the fourth game of the World Series and lifting America back up again off its knees. I just watched that that performance the game for there's Arizona and the Yankees and I have to say you you know, you you look a little bit older but not much older than you look back then and that's pretty amazing. But yeah, I just watched it a few minutes ago and that was pretty pretty amazing. Yeah, interesting going, you know as an interesting sidebar. I've just been nominated and elected to be a member of Horatio Alger, which is a society that supports young scholars who had very adverse beginnings and one of my 12 recipients who are all honored at the same time is Ken Kendricks. Ken Kendricks is owning and managing partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks. And so we had conversation about that fourth game of the World Series that year between the Yankees and the Diamondbacks in New York City and New York kept pulling it out until the seventh game which went back to Arizona and Arizona ended winning in the seventh game, but but that moment that defining moment of America getting off its knees and me purposely wearing the red white and blue jacket and it was a lot of conversation about do you wear America's colors as clothes and of course I respected that and then Congress and the Supreme Court basically said, you know what it's that's not a desecration of our colors to wear it as a piece of clothing and then it was Katie bar the door. Everybody started wearing red white and blue of everything. It wasn't necessarily wearing and wrapping yourself in the flag as an Olympian might do once they win an Olympic medal, but that performance defined. I think how I felt about the country and how everybody else felt about the country after we were attacked by a terrorist organization with which was a country without a flag. I want to ask you about the faith and the role faith plays in not just in your life, but in your in your artistic endeavors in your music and particularly in the in the God bless the USA and how you thought about faith when you when you wrote the song. I'm glad you asked that that it's interesting about my personal life. My grandparents who were my guardians made sure that they sent me to church and I went to the first Baptist Church in North Sacramento when I sang in the choir since I was like 9 10 11 years old. I remember my first song that I ever sang in church was a holy night and I was scared to death because the pastor was all full of brim and fire and and and I was scared of him, you know, but but singing in the choir gave me a great deal of spirit and Harmony and and I had such a very high voice that I sang with the soprano section, which is all girls and that was good for a young teenager. I enjoyed having the faith and the spirit now as I began to chase my career and I moved away from home at 17 and went to Nevada. I don't believe I had a lot of faith in Nevada. I was was chasing my career. So very hard. I had a marriage and a divorce another marriage and a divorce and it just I could not find the thing that would keep my feet on the ground when I moved to Nashville. I finally met the woman who I fell in love with who was a former Miss Tennessee Kimberly Payne and we were married in 1992 and her family was wonderful Christians and they brought me back to the faith that I had been missing. And so I had already already written God bless you. I say in a search for that faith, but with Kim came into my life and and I guess she was 89 1989. I'd already lived with my song for some years as you know for six years and it always already was heralded not just by the country, but the world as an American Anthem Kim embraced that part of my career and let me know that she wanted me to have the strongest faith. I probably possibly could have and I believe she's the one that brought me back to belief that I knew was there. I just was missing it. Yeah, but the reason I ask that is because people of faith believe that in many ways praying or honoring God gives returns, right? And and I think most would agree that America is blessed in so many ways. I lived in a different country and and I know what it's like and it's it's very different. It's it's you know, we have it much better here. There's no question about it. So when you have this song and I have to say that because your song is so famous and and so well known it tends to overlook your other aspect of the career, you know that that just happens but because of the title of the song and the way you express it in a way it is honoring God's or think thanking God's or asking us to bless the USA. So that may actually have an effect in some way in some form on the country itself. Is that something you ever thought about? I thought it very very deeply when I wrote it. Can you imagine if I wrote the song that said we believe in the USA, you know, and but I put God first. I mean, it's no it was a conscious thought. There's no doubt about it. I remember the years that I did not and and and did not have faith in my life, but I knew that it was missing and and when I got to that moment when I started writing USA, I'm sure there was a belief in the country. There was a belief in our military. There was a belief that I was a Christian and needed to express that so it played a very important part in me writing the lyrics of God bless the USA. Can you talk to us about some of your toughest moments? You've been through in your career and how you came out of it. Well, what did you do to recover? That's a good question for the Horatio Alger recipients. And since I am one adversity is something we all go through my level of adversity was never physical. It was more mental than anything. I can remember moving from Las Vegas, Nevada where things were good to Los Angeles where I was born and assumed that La would open its arms to me. I could not find a job. I had a record contract that went South. I was living in the Valley and and having no money trying to support a family and realizing I had to do something other than sing and and I was desperate. I was down to my last couple of bucks and I think just because I know what if I'm in a free country and I can do anything I want my grandparents were farmers. My stepfather was a contractor. I learned lots of things I could do but none of those were Pete appealing to me. I wanted to go to the thing that God had given me the gift for so I reached out to some people. I knew I said, I don't care where I go. What do I have to do stay in the country, but I will sing play dance stand my head on fire. Whatever I have to do in entertainment to make a living and eventually I crawled out of the despair that adversity now is what we do in Horatio Alger giving our our scholars scholarships to college last year over 34,000 Horatio Alger scholars and a million seven for their scholarship. So it's something I proudly do now and and talk about my adversity in a more positive way. You had a collaboration with Drew Jacobs and you you have a different version of the song. Can you please tell us about that? What how that came about? That's the fifth recording of God bless the USA. They were to an MCA. I have my own personal version that I use as a track when I sing at stadiums and we have been after 2001 on all charts in America except the rock chart and there was an overture made to me by the artist Drew Jacobs from Detroit who had done covers on many songs that brought him fame in the rock world and asked if he could collaborate with me and write a different version of it. And so he presented me with a with a much more lively track if you will. I liked it a lot. I asked my two boys who Dalton turns 30 next this week and and our younger son 26 if he thought that that would be a way to reach the younger audience and he said absolutely both of my boys gave me that that direction. So I I agreed and to tell you the truth. I really liked it and it did go number one and on the rock charts, which is one which is an effort. No one else has ever achieved and we had like a million and a half views in three or four months, which means people were really interested in seeing how it sounded with more tempo. And so it's kind of cool. I liked it. Yeah, absolutely. You were talking about wearing the US flag as a clothes and I can't stop by remembering how in in Rocky 4, you know, Rocky Balboa is wearing the shorts, you know with the US flag when he fights the Russian and then of course he wins. He's not a machine. He's a man. Be more man than him. How important that is in so many ways, right? Because you represent the country and in you your Patriots. So, you know, why not right? Why not wear the flag in some way? Well, I totally agreed with most of the dissenters about that and that is we can't in any way disrespect the flag and I think that was the point was you can probably wear the colors of red white and blue and of course, there's other countries that have red white and blue in their flag and they have clothing that represents that they put the flag on the back of a jacket or whatever. I mean, that's nothing wrong with that. I think I think what they were saying is if you're going to wear the colors of our country do it in a respectful manner and and that jacket was actually given to me by the company that made it as a present and I had it at home and I and it was actually too big for me. You see the video when I stretch out my hands. It's like it's actually too big and I ended up, you know, giving it away and I got a better size that fit me later on but I in my feeling about it was if I'm going to wear this I'm going to wear it respectfully. And of course when I sing God bless USA, there's no better place to do it. Now having said that I've never worn it again. I don't have any other place. I've ever sang it that I thought would be more important than that. In your song again, you're talking about the people who gave their life for this land and how so many of us forget this right and you know, it's been it's been so long since World War two ended and you know, most people are either very older. I remember Romania obtained its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877 and they were trying for hundreds of years to become independent to have, you know, their own land hundreds of years and then they finally did in 1977 and in a way I realized how far we are from appreciating what we have because it's been peace for so long and will your song you're reminding us and you know, you're you're bringing some issues up that otherwise people, you know, forget. So how do you think we can change the culture more for people to appreciate more of what we have instead of complaining? That we don't know. Well, I I don't know that people complain a lot about the country. They may complain about taxes, unfair job practices, unfair unions, unfair freeways, too many too much traffic and they complain about a lot of things. I don't think people really complain a lot about the country to tell you the truth. They recognize freedom is an overall protection for all of us and a lot of countries have still struggled for freedom such as Africa and even people we consider our allies are enslaved by different kinds of things. Two weeks ago. We opened the Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas. It is a place where the highest military honor is awarded those who do extraordinary things under combat service circumstances. It's a beautiful building and what everybody should go see if you want to be reminded and they play God bless the USA in the building and I was there and I sang it live with a pageantry that was unbelievable the United States Air Force marching band and the colonial marching band as well and and just star studded from politicians to actors and actresses but about 16 or 17 of the Medal of Honor recipients who were still alive were there as well who are all my close friends and if anybody wants to know about patriotism go there read the stories of the sacrifice the military has paid for our freedom. You were at the 2024 GOP convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and then you introduced President Trump and then as you're singing he's walking on the stage with his family as you're singing. Can you describe to us the feeling you have when he's walking towards the stage as you're singing? What did it feel like? I have an interesting backstory for you on that the band that was hired to play the RNC in Milwaukee all used to work for me when I did my USO tours. They're called six wire with the addition of one additional player who was also a friend and a great singer the guitar player, but they were the band when I met my wife Kim in 1989. So I hadn't worked with them in years, but because they work for me for 10 years during the time when God bless USA was just brand new they knew how I would perform it and they knew if I wanted to make it go longer or shorter there was versions of it. So as we begin to sing the entrance for the president, he always comes into the arena when the song begins if I have been singing to the track it would have been over in three and a half minutes and he would still be walking. So fortuitously for me the band knew that I wanted to go longer. I didn't have to say it and so when I finished the first verse I'm looking at the president walking in walking very slow very deliberately. I knew at that moment. I'm going to have to make this go longer. And so I waited waited until he and the band kept playing the music till he got into the box vice president elect Vance stood next to him and then I got eye contact with Trump jr. And we were friends and and I noticed he had a very solemn look about him. Not the jubilant look you would expect for the election now of his father. He was actually scanning the room looking for any possible threat and and I knew that that was the case. I too was a little nervous about that because he'd just been shot. Yes. And so when I got eye contact with him and he gave me sort of a nod I knew that was the moment to finish the song. So before I did I welcomed the president. Ladies and gentlemen, the 45th president of the United States and soon to be the 47th president of the United States, please. Welcome Donald that folks and the place went crazy. And of course, I just these are all his people. These are all of the people that you know want him to be the next president and he's president-elect at this point. And so I'm I'm just talking from my heart and then I finished the song which I often do when I work live with him on the campaign or sing any place where he is and he allows me to sing the entire song while he stands next to me and that's happened numerous times and I suppose it might happen several times again, but we'll have to see that's amazing. Do you have a personal relationship with the president and can you tell us any stories or anything else that would might be interesting for audience about the president? Well, first of all, our president Trump is is a very large man. He's big. I've had six five or six. I know exactly what his height is. He's imposing but but disarming. I mean, he's a very gentle spirit and I've shake his hand many times. I've shook his hand many times. I get that is and he'll always draw me to him and give me a bear hug. You know, it's like it's so cool at when we did the Madison Square Garden performance and and I sang with Melania the first lady on stage with him and I'm kind of standing to the left with the media with the Secret Service and media asked me to do something. He just a shot of them. Then he moved over to me with the first lady shook my hand and then kind of gave me a slap on the back as I left the stage which shows his friendship is his fellowship his desire to be a friend. He is that way with almost everyone and and when he gets his threat about tariffs and all that, you know, he's basically just having conversation but he wants to get people's attention and he only has four years to do it. If he had an eight-year term and they haven't kicked him out of office on 2020. We'd have all this behind us by now. And so I know that he has a shorter period of time, which he's moving forward on the agenda to protect America. Please tell us what keeps you going as strong as you are going at 82. Oh, you know, I'm 82. Dang it. The whole world knows, you know, it's funny. I I was an athlete all my life. I was a runner in school and baseball player. I played baseball up until my mid-twenties and then I went to basketball and I played basketball for the next 35 years or so and then a little tennis and then I went to racquetball and I played racquetball for 15 years, which kind of did my knees in but my metabolism has always been very quick as you probably can take from my speech. And I think that maybe just keeps my nerve jingling, you know, and and I shed off weight. I don't gain any weight. I can eat anything I want. And so it's just I'm very lucky and very blessed to have that kind of anatomy. So I'm not nearly as creative as I used to be. I like routine and I think that's the one thing that kind of as I remember my mother, you know, has to start writing notes all the time because she couldn't remember anything. I'm sort of getting that way and becoming my mother and I wrote I write notes all the times. I don't forget something. So that's the only part of getting older that I think I dislike but I'm still ambulatory and I can get around very easy. I still have a touring life until the end of this year at least and I don't like flying as much as I used to. I like more just in my touring bus and so I can get a good night's sleep. You're part of the National Council of the Arts under three administrations and you have recently been nominated and you are now a board member of the Kennedy Center. Please tell us about that. First of all, tell us in your understanding. What is the significance of the Kennedy Center for the United States? Well, first of all, let me tell you about the National Endowment of the Arts Council, which I was there. Let me see. It was a six-year appointment. I think I was still there 12 years through several administrations because any any member that becomes a council member has to be ratified by the Senate. And so the business of government sometimes moves on quickly without that change. And when we finally got to the Biden administration, they got around to replacing some of the people that have been there too long. I get that. President Trump decided to make me a trustee at the Kennedy Center in 2020 and then recently re-up again with more trustees added to which I think there was approximately 14. Now there's 32 and it gives us a wider breadth of people who can control and move forward with the Kennedy Center. What is the significance of it? It is the premier performing center of the United States. If you go to Broadway, there's numerous theaters on Broadway that present wonderful plays and to give you an example, since President Trump has become the chairman of the Kennedy Center. Our first opening is Les Mis on June 11. So bringing a Broadway play to the to the magnificent Kennedy Center live is a great achievement and they're going to be many more performances that are that are widely looked at as treasures of the US and and international. I'm sure they're going to bring some international performances there as well. Yeah, speaking of that, the Shen Yun Performing Arts, the group that travels worldwide and it's and we are a media sponsor as far as the Epoch Times goes. They perform the Kennedy Center for 10 days in late February and early March and from what I understand it was a fantastic turnaround and performance. What do you expect to be changes? Do you expect any changes to happen at the Kennedy Center since the new administration is involved as the president being the chairman? Well, without making it political and I that seems to be the topic of a conversation. I'm going to move away from that, but I will tell you that I believe we're going to just go back the way it has always been and that's inviting any wonderful act any any wonderful live performance, whether it's ballet or symphony or piano player or an athlete, but somebody that presents wonderful entertainment for an audience that expects higher achievement and and certainly they want to do business good business as well. So I think they have to be something that they bring to the center that they know will sell tickets. We you know, Trump President Trump is a business person and his direction to the to the from from a chairman's standpoint to the president that runs the Kennedy Center is let's make this business profitable and so any act that comes in there any play that comes in there. We want to make sure like Le Mis which we're confident will sell out will make a good business sense. That's completely fair. Can you please share with us? What are some of your favorite venues that you performed in venues and events in themselves? You'd be surprised at what I'm going to tell you is the most popular venue or the most likable venue I've ever played at I played in all the theaters in Nevada in the Indian casinos across America. They replicate all of the gambling casinos because most of them have gambling now and they are popular from Minnesota to Florida the Texas to Connecticut, but my favorite performing venue, which is in the Vegas type Presidium stage, which faces the audience. It's a very wide stage which gives you good space to perform. It has seating down front but has booths in the bed that are velvet booze about 15 or 20 of them facing the audience and they're tiered. They're tiered levels. It gives an audience. Everybody has an ability to be a head higher than the one in front of them, which gives you good audience view. The audio the audio is fantastic. The venue itself seats about 1500. It also has a glassed area at the top where gamblers can view it and can even smoke and and not be involved but can hear the act see the act and have conversation without interrupting the act. The backstage area is absolutely beautiful. They give you gifts when you leave they have catering that is on you have breakfast lunch and dinner served and you you'd be amazed when I tell you where it is. Las Vegas, Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is the Hard Rock Casino, which used to be called the joint and is now called the Heart Rock performing venue and is it's a Hard Rock Cafe with 1500 seats. That's amazing. My maybe I may be mistaken. Maybe smaller than that. I when I look at it, I have to have to maybe I'm going to say this may be smaller than maybe 900 but it but it's really beautiful. It's really beautiful. Well, you have something else you worked on and this is the God bless the USA Bible Bible. Please tell us about why you did this and what it involves. We have lots of friends in our neighborhood and some of them have come from other countries. They become citizens the United States through the natural immigration laws. And my wife and I both had a Bible on our nightstands. Mine is a King James Version. I believe her is an American Standard, but we also have a Bible family Bible on our table in the living room and we have one of our friends from Bolivia who was there and he had become a citizen and he noticed the Bible and he said, you know, it's funny your country how it developed through faith and he said I have studied the Constitution and and I know a lot about America and he said I'm not going to I'm curious why you don't have the Constitution lying there next to it. I said, well, I've studied the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. I know about our American Revolution. I never thought about having it included with the Bible or in the Bible that gave me the epiphany to actually go ahead and produce a Bible with those documents in it. And so we have the God bless USA Bible, which is what it's called. Let me see. I have a version of it here. This is leather bound and it's really pretty and it has an emblem of the flags on the bottom. It is the Holy Bible and it says God bless you say on the front of it, which is basically an endorsement of the country. But knowing that this particular Bible has the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Pledge of Allegiance and just did to make it proper because of God bless you USA. I actually have a handwritten version of my lyrics that is copied inside the Bible as well. Now, naturally these are the end after the the gospel after the text of the Bible. This is the back of the Bible where you have notes and so this version of the Bible is been out for a number of years is extremely popular with everyone. And as we move into this Easter season, we're we have this one available. This is a pink version of it with a beautiful cover so men can probably buy this for for their wives because it's pink and then of course we have another version yet for our military friends. It's a camouflage. It's the same version. God bless you. It's a Holy Bible, but I'm going to give this to some of my friends who are in the military for Easter as well. God bless you as a.com is where you find it. I know critics have said that some people have issues with the fact that there's a mixture of you know, the actual scriptures and then the Constitution and the other documents. What do you say to that? Well, that's I mean, that's that's our personal view. That's fine. You know, when when the president takes his oath, he puts his hand on the Bible to defend the country from enemies out enemies with him when you go to court and you're a witness. They bring you a Bible. You put your hand on it. You will tell the truth the whole truth. Nothing but the truth. Okay, it is the word of God. If we're a Christian nation and we are and and our founding fathers felt it important that we develop a Constitution that gives us every person the right to defend themselves to have a day in court to pay taxes. I don't see anything wrong with having those documents associated with the word of God because I consider us a Christian nation. So that's why we produced it disagreeable. Thank you so much for your time is anything else you'd like to add anything you'd like to our audience to go back home with? Well, my wife and I will next this week will be married 32 years. We believe in the sanctity of marriage. We have two sons that turn Dalton turns 30. He's a PhD from Vanderbilt in cancer research and immunology. Our younger son is getting his musical degree from the University of Miami. He's 26 and and as a family we believe in the Republic of America and we do everything we can to be great ambassadors and Patriots. So I just say happy Easter everybody and I hope that you enjoy your time. If you're from another country in this wonderful place called America. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, sir. And I enjoyed the interview. I appreciate it. Thank you for watching another episode of Bay Area Innovators. If you enjoyed this episode and you know someone who should be on our show, please send us an email at We would love to hear from you. Thank you and see you next week.