Leaders and Their Stories

Speaker 2 (00:03.416)
Hello, my name is Richard Lowe and this is the Leaders and Their Stories podcast. I'm the writing king and the ghost writing guru. Welcome to the podcast. I'm here with Ralph Brown, who's got some interesting things to talk about. Ralph, why don't you tell us about yourself?

Well, I'm a four time world record holder and extreme boating. Nice. So it's a little bit different. Prior Service US Marine. Yep. And Marine Corps is really good to me. No doubt there. And then I have a master's in education, experienced teaching high school science and mathematics, which I absolutely love teaching. And

I gotta admit the most fun people to teach is the middle schoolers. Six and seventh and eighth graders. They're just more fun. Ninth graders are good too, but you get the tenth graders are like.

Well, they're hitting puberty and stuff, you know?

They're not so bad either. 11th graders though, and the 12th graders, you impress me. They don't mean to impress them. I don't want to impress them. I want to have fun. I want to learn some important stuff. And then I also worked in the financial services industry for about 15 years. I helped people plan their retirement. had a security license. Learned a lot about finance and how things really work. so things don't always work the way you think they're going to work.

Speaker 2 (01:32.556)
They probably never work the way you think they're going to work.

So I guess about a few years back, my wife went shopping. It was Black Friday. I absolutely hate Black Friday. Me too. It's just like torture. I've gone to a few stores on Black Friday with my family. And I mean, it's just like wall to wall people just move, move, move. I don't like to block anybody. I, you know, it's just very uncomfortable.

Very miserable, but my wife loves it. Good for her. Go have fun. I took my two boys and I went camping and a friend of mine, he's like me, he hates Black Friday too. So he took his boys and went camping. So we're camping together and we're heading out Chascawiska River in Homosassa, Florida, just north of Tampa Bay. Okay. we hit a rock. Broke the motor.

Okay?

ruined the day of traffic, the day of fishing. So anyways, being the good parents that we were, we sat around and had our kids paddle.

Speaker 2 (02:43.214)
Of course.

They're paddling and paddling. Come on guys, a little faster. Come on and get with it. And so, and somebody came along and towed us in. I did not know that was going to be a life-changing moment in my life.

what happened here?

No idea, but I got kind pissed off. I thought gee whiz, we can put a man on the moon, but we can't make a boat that would go over those super shallow waters and still be safe on the high seas. And so the big deal about boating is three problems. Big waves, shallow water, okay, and horrible, horrible, horrible fuel economy. And that one I mean by horrible, I mean horrible fuel economy. Okay.

Boats that are made for big waves, okay, run aground in shallow water or hit rocks like we did, okay? Boats that are made for shallow water tip over, upside down, kill their passengers in big waves. And so the number one cause of death in boating, you would think it'd be drowning. It is drowning, but what caused it to drowning was the boat tipped over. You may remember,

Speaker 2 (03:53.72)
Right.

Speaker 1 (03:57.4)
football players off of Tampa Bay about 15 years ago. They're both tipping over. You remember the international news. Don't remember. But anyways, knew Marquis. I knew him and he died that day. I only knew no two professional football players that were active at the time. And Marquis Cooper and Dwayne White. Dwayne wasn't with him, but Marquis was.

Okay.

Speaker 1 (04:27.414)
And so I met Marquis and a couple of times out fishing. And anyways, in fact, the first time I met him, he was out fishing off of Clearwater Beach, just north of, well, not really north of Tampa, but it's across from Tampa Bay. Most of you will know where Clearwater Beach is, but we were fishing out about three or four miles out and it started getting dark. And I started the motor and I was ready to go in, pull up anchor. And Marquis Cooper's, I didn't know who it was. There was a couple of muscle bound guys.

a couple of pretty girls in the boat next to me, you know, just like an arm's throw away. And they were they couldn't get their motor started. And it turned out they had fishing line all wrapped around it. I offered to tow them in and they said, no, they wanted to clean it off. Well, one of them said, tow me in. The other one said, we're going to wait. So I waited for them to get their motor started. It was getting dark. In fact, it got dark and I refused to leave. My wife's like, let's go.

They don't want to get towed in, let's go, I'm ready to go. And I said, no way, I'm not leaving anybody out here that's stranded because it doesn't take much for a small problem to become a gigantic problem if things go wrong. And so eventually they got their motor started and we came on in, we came in, my wife said, those guys look like football players. Why don't you go ask them? So I went over and asked them. It turned out to be Mark East Cooper and Dwayne White. And then I bumped into him again fishing.

shark fishing a couple months later. And then it was all in the news how their boat had tipped over about 35 miles off the coast of Tampa. three of the people, it was four guys in the boat, but three of the four drowned. And so big problem, boats tipping over. And so the other issue is basically horrible fuel economy. So I developed a boat.

that could run in super, super shallow water. I'm talking that much water, three and a half inches of water. I've got video of it running in about an inch of water, but that's not good for the motor and that's not good for other things. But three and a half inches of water, it runs beautiful in it. And so, and it's safe on the high seas. So to prove it, I took one from Tampa, Florida to Wiesbaden, Germany. All the way around Florida.

Speaker 2 (06:51.042)
It's just-

all the way up the coast of the United States to Canada, to Greenland, to Iceland, to the Faroe Islands, the Shetland Islands, the Orkney Islands, Scotland, London. From London, we went to France, and then we were in France one hour. Took them one hour to figure out that the French people really don't like Americans. I've heard that forever. I was there an olive one hour, okay? And that's not really fair. I shouldn't paint the whole place with it.

Well now you know.

Speaker 1 (07:22.498)
When we arrived, this one French guy met us. I don't drink, but he met us with a bottle of wine. Okay. And said, welcome to France. But we were all over the news. You know, all that kind of stuff. But we went in to do customs and it's like five o'clock and the guy, the customs guy was still at his desk and he wouldn't stamp our passports and let us into the country. He said, go back out to the boat and spend the night. So we had to go back out, pass the fence, lock the fence behind us. You couldn't go in.

And they wanted us to sit on our boat for another till tomorrow morning. Well, the boat's only a 21 footer. It's the smallest power boat that's ever crossed the ocean in the history of the world. I've looked at my brother for months. I don't want to sit on that boat and look at him anymore. And so we got in the boat and left. But what's interesting is, I mean, I was pleading with this guy and then he ended up with that same remark all the time. You Americans think you're so special. OK, we can. I don't have time to stamp your passport.

And the truth is he didn't have to stamp my passport because once at that time, if he was stamped in England, it was good in France too. I didn't know that. But I guarantee you that guy sitting behind the desk knew it. he didn't. He wasn't going to tell us, you guys just came from England. Yeah. OK. Well, could have just said he asked the question. Did we just came from England? Yeah. So we got to Rotterdam, Holland and two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning.

They came out to do customs for us. What a difference. Yeah. And they said, you don't have to do customs. You've got, you were stamped in England. what? So you didn't have to go because it was that time England was part of the European common market at that time. Right. Right. don't have to go through, you mean that French guy didn't tell us this? No. I guarantee you he knew it. Okay. that's his job to know that stuff. So.

How did all this change your life?

Speaker 1 (09:19.256)
How did that change my life? man, we've set four world records in boating. the third problem is the horrible, horrible fuel economy boats make. They get horrible fuel economy. I'm talking about you get down in your car and get down going down the interstate at 70 miles an hour. you're assuming you have an internal combustion engine and not a gasoline engine, mean, not electric engine, but you got an internal combustion, you're getting between 20 and 30 miles to the gallon.

at 70 miles an hour and you got to raise you about 300 miles, almost all cars. If you could find a boat that would do 70 miles an hour and had a range of 300 miles, it's not getting 20 to 30 miles per gallon, it's getting.

or three gallons to the mile. The big ships, 400 gallons to the mile. Contemplate 400 gallons for every mile. And that's the biggest ships. Most of the ships is more like 50 to 100 gallons to the mile, but still 50 gallons every mile.

Interesting. Kind of like a tank.

Speaker 1 (10:36.982)
That's just outrageous. The amount of fuel they use. So I developed a boat that not only could run in that much water, but I also developed and was safe on the high seas. I developed an additional boat that gets dramatically better fuel economy. Interesting. developed that. Basically, that one I actually found by accident. I have to admit that I was doing a bunch of testing and everything for shallow water capability.

and not to tip over and to be stable on the high seas. So the boat I crossed the Atlantic in, if you look me up, smallest power boat, not smallest boat, but smallest power boat to cross the Atlantic, you'll see a little tiny yellow and green boat. The reason it's yellow and green is interstate battery paid for it and their colors are green.

So again, how did this lead to you changing your life? It's because of the boat you created.

we're creating the first ever first annual powerboat race all the way around the world. right. If you just kind of give you an idea, there's eighty five thousand families that have over one hundred million dollars around the world. And that list is growing fast, by the way, as developing countries are coming online. And whenever you have developing countries, there's always somebody making a million bucks or two or three. But anyways, there's more than eighty five

Okay.

Speaker 1 (11:59.406)
Thousand families that have over 100 million if you've got over 100 million you can afford to buy everything you want right course Except you can't buy an NFL team and you got a really big ego. You might want to count a NFL team you can't buy a major league baseball team. You can't buy an NBA team You can't buy a international Formula One race team. Okay, their average is 1.9 billion

Okay. You can't buy a major league soccer team in the United States. I'm sorry. Okay. Well, the big deal is a lot of these people had big egos and they would love to own an NFL team. Okay. It's just way out of their price range. So I'm developing a race around the world. We're selling teams that people with a hundred million can afford. Okay. Interesting is the largest

Got the idea. I have the idea, okay.

Speaker 1 (12:57.506)
This is what I'm doing now, full time. It's actually an international contest to improve the fuel efficiency of ships and boats and yachts. So 90 % of all trade. I bet you that fancy shirt you're wearing right now was made in China or some other country other than the United States. And I would bet money it got here by ship. But that ship is using the same freighter technology

Vietnam.

Speaker 2 (13:22.05)
I'm sure it did.

Speaker 1 (13:27.278)
propulsion that they used 67 years ago.

I'm sure it came over on a container ship just like most things.

I guess. And those things get a horrible fuel economy and the same technology. So people say, well, aren't there any better ideas? Yes, there's thousands of better ideas out there. you see back up, there are thousands of ideas. But if you assume that those ideas are all good, you could be making a big mistake. OK. And basically, we're providing a proving ground.

the longest race of any kind in the history of mankind, creating it to race all the way around the world. It's a 62,000 mile race the way we go. Basically, we go all the way to the bottom of Africa. We go through both canals. We go around South America. Anyway, I said both canals. Mistake. We're not going through the Panama Canal. We'll go around South America.

It's the longest race in the history of mankind. And we believe it's going to bring forth really good ideas that are proven. Now, if you understand how the shipping industry works, a ship is built on average for 25 years. After 25 years, it's very, very hard to get insurance on the ship. So without insurance on the ship, nobody wants it in the harbor.

Speaker 2 (15:01.614)
course not. Of course not.

Look at Baltimore. Look at what happened in Baltimore. One of the ships hit a bridge there.

Yeah, nobody wants an uninsured ship.

Okay. Look, look at Tampa Bay. You go back about 40 years, one of the ships hit the Suncoast highway, great big bridge. The ship actually hit another ship first. Okay. Coast Guard cutter. They tried to drop anchor. They dropped the anchor in the middle of the Coast Guard ship. They hit that. They dropped the anchor, tipped over the Coast Guard ship. Okay. Killed 23. I think it's 23. 20 some odd Coast Guard.

Coast Guard guys. And then it hit the big bridge and killed another 38 people or so. Shutting down traffic in Tampa Bay for a couple of years, destroying it, just really devastating what they did.

Speaker 2 (15:55.872)
We've got about 10 more minutes, so.

well, you asked me how it changed my life. I'm telling you how it. Good. I can talk on this. You're to stop and ask other questions because we're creating this race and I can talk about this race for the next 20 years.

Okay.

Speaker 2 (16:11.052)
I know, figured that out.

Okay, I love it. I absolutely love it. Okay.

Very good. So you've created this race that's going to raise a lot of money and change a lot of lives.

Yes. Yes. And not just we have a hospital fund for developing countries. It's part of this. We're not raising money for the fund right now, but we will be using the power of the microphone. What I mean by the power of the microphone, most Americans think that football is the big thing. It is a big thing. No doubt about it. It's a very, very big thing. But on the scope of the rest of the world, it's not.

No.

Speaker 1 (16:53.154)
No. The largest football stadium, American football stadium is Michigan State University. It holds about hundred and seven thousand people. They put extra seats in it and they can get up to one hundred and fifteen thousand people. All right. The largest soccer, what we call soccer or the rest of the world calls football stadium is in North Korea. It holds one hundred and fourteen thousand people. That's a lot.

Okay.

Speaker 1 (17:22.894)
It's the largest soccer stadium in the world. then the cricket is really big too. The largest cricket stadium in the world is Australia. Yep. It holds a hundred and a hundred thousand four hundred seats or so. A hundred. Anyways, but over a hundred thousand people, just barely over a hundred thousand. The largest racing stadium. Hold on to your seat. The largest racing stadium. Three hundred and fifty.

Okay.

Speaker 1 (17:52.782)
thousand seats. It's three times bigger than the largest football stadium, three times bigger than the largest soccer stadium, three times bigger than the largest cricket stadium. So people like to watch racing. Okay. That just got done with the America's Cup sailboat race in Europe. Just got done with it. The economic impact of a race over $1.4 billion, a sailboat race.

That's a lot of seats.

Speaker 1 (18:22.166)
More than a million people came out to see it. The sailboat race. So we're creating a race of that caliber. We're looking to create billions of dollars of economic impact and millions of dollars paying people coming out to see it and then millions to watch it on TV. You stop and think the five largest things on TV on the planet. I'm, excuse me, five largest regular things on TV because

Landing on the moon is big and Queen Elizabeth's funeral was really, really big. But other than those two things, the five largest things on TV worldwide, the Olympics, half of it's That happens a bunch of other things, but half of it's racing. It's country competing against country. World Cup soccer, it's country competing against country. European Cup soccer, it's country competing against country.

it.

America's Cup. That's a several race I just told you about. It's country competing against country and it's racing. Are you seeing a pattern here? Okay. And then next Formula One racing. The NFL didn't make the list. The top five things. Okay. It's racing and soccer. The world loves racing and soccer. No doubt about it.

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:45.484)
Okay.

Speaker 1 (19:49.88)
So we're creating this new race. We believe we're going to have the power of impact of the microphone. We believe the television and media rights are going to end up being worth a lot. We believe we're going to have the power to help a lot of people do a lot of things. one of the things I'm really motivated about is basically hospitals in third world countries. they have, in most countries, they have the high value

Basically hospitals that are private hospitals for very wealthy people. Those are clean and most of them would compare with US hospitals. Okay, they're clean. You go to the public hospitals in most countries, they're filthy. And the care there is horrible. my niece, Christy Brown, was nine years old when she died in Honduras. Something that could be easily taken care of in the United States.

Easily. My brother wasn't rich. Okay. Went to one hospital. They said, we can't help her. Send her to another hospital and they just let her die. There wasn't much they could do. And something that would be easily treated in the United States. Easily.