00:12:36 · Ian Dallimore, Charlie Lamar
[00:12:36] S0: A little more complicated [00:12:37] S1: actually because, yeah, he became the general partner. But my uncle, Mart, who lived with the bond salesman in New Orleans, he had the Jackson, Mississippi office. We had Pensacola, Baton Rouge, Jackson, Mississippi and he ran that one and his son Albert eventually ran that kind of at the same time as Kevin Reilly Sr. Around 1960. They ran those in parallel. So when eventually what we call Lamar Baton Rouge bought out Lamar Jackson, but that was much later. [00:13:14] S0: And then became its own company. So you joined the company, we jokingly but seriously said it was when you were born is when you really joined the company. So going back to your story, so in college, you were going to school to be a lawyer.
00:13:14 · Ian Dallimore, Charlie Lamar
[00:13:14] S0: And then became its own company. So you joined the company, we jokingly but seriously said it was when you were born is when you really joined the company. So going back to your story, so in college, you were going to school to be a lawyer. [00:13:28] S1: By 'seventy four, Kevin Sr, again, complicated story. But basically at that time we had probably 16, 18 separate companies. So there was Lamar Baton Rouge was one, Lamar Brook, which was all the painted bulletins in South Louisiana. And we had some real estate companies like Hola, Woodlawn, which I still have. That's right. And so they had all of those, but we had reached the point with Kevin's great leadership that we could actually borrow money from banks. But before the banks would lend us this whopping $50,000,000 they said, well, we have to have common ownership. So we have our collateral be easy to seize basically if they had to. And so he formed the Lamar Corporation and all the companies were merged into that. And when that board was established, I became a board member at the ripe old age of 21 or whatever I was. [00:14:29] S0: So going to that, at this point, I have a handful of friends that are basically in family business, construction, law firms, and it's kind of just the expected. Did your father expect and want you to be in the business? Or was it more just, Hey, whatever you wanna do, you get on the path, you get educated, but here's a little bit about it. What's the story?
00:14:53 · Charlie Lamar
[00:14:53] S1: Well, unfortunately my father died when I was 12 years old. So we never got to those ambitious He was just focused on me getting educated. But anyway, but this story, it's related to Kevin Reilly Sr. Who really became like my guardian over the years through college and law school and thereafter. And I had no intention whatsoever to go into the family business. I was gonna be a lawyer. So I mean, it was a lawyer got to do with billboards anyway. And little did I know at the time. So when I came back to Baton Rouge, when I went away to school, college, law school, and I intended to practice law somewhere else. And then I decided that Baton Rouge is my home and I wanted to come home. So I came back here and practiced law in a local law firm. And after a while, I had to decide which track I was gonna go on because I'd been practicing law for about four years. So then you kinda get on a partner track and you have to make a commitment to the firm or I was gonna go and work for the company and be more active in the company and whatever role I could serve. And so I chose the latter and Kevin was supportive eventually but basically Kevin Reilly Sr. Did not like lawyers. I mean, had great friends with Ben Miller and was a lawyer for but as far as the legal process, he's a businessman. Even though he was a legislator for a long time, he basically, I don't think serving legislature improved his opinion, although I'm telling you the truth. But in any event, we had to discuss it for a while because we had more, we were bigger and bigger back in, this was the early 80s and there was more and more going on. Although really I talked to him into letting me be the lawyer by doing collections for the company because I was always an experienced collections guy because I was doing collections for the largest retail store, Goudchaux's. People from Baton Rouge will remember back in those days when I was in private practice. So I started there and eventually evolved really into my main work, which was fortunately nothing to do with collections, but really about zoning and legislation. So that's mainly what I did, although I did leasing and contracts and disputes like that. But mainly it was public relations, government relations and legislative. Because as you know, we are regulated at every level of government. So
00:17:32 · Ian Dallimore, Charlie Lamar
[00:17:32] S0: to kind of take a step back to kind of bridge the gap. I always tell my kids 11 years old, they're like, so how does the Lamar families, who's the Reilly's, who's the Switzer's? So to kind of bridge that gap there when your father passed away, your kind of guardian was Kevin Reilly Sr. Correct. Who married your first cousin. So that's where kind of the Lamar side of things. And then whenever eventually Kevin Reilly Sr. Retires his son Kevin Reilly Jr, which which is your cousin. [00:18:05] S1: Right. [00:18:06] S0: Yeah, tell me that side of the story, because I wanna dive deeper into exactly what you're talking about, but tell me that side of the story. So you have to beg your cousin for a job. [00:18:16] S1: Basically.
00:18:16 · Charlie Lamar, Ian Dallimore
[00:18:16] S1: Basically. [00:18:16] S0: Yeah, so he didn't like lawyers, but he liked the collection side. And a lot of people just to kind of set the stage, a lot of people may not realize this in the out of home side of things, but owning a lease and being on the good side of the legislators is extremely important, because during this time, we're not there yet, but during that time you have the, Lyndon B. Johnson has the Beautification Act by his lovely wife, which almost tried to cripple the out of home space to beautify the out of home space. So having a lawyer and having someone that's really fine tuned on both the government relations side, as well as the leasing side is imperative. I explain this to people all the time, like snap of a finger if legislation comes off and says like, hey, we no longer allow billboards. It's gonna be a very tough day in the out of home space. Obviously, there's guardrails that are set in place now. But back then, that's a real thing. If you wanna grow your company, you're gonna have to be in with these local municipalities in these local, laws that are passed or favorability towards it. So you're in my opinion, humble opinion, I think that that role is extremely well needed, especially in that time.
00:19:30 · Charlie Lamar
[00:19:30] S1: And this time too, I mean, we still have cities that have prohibited billboards and we have cities and counties that are trying to eliminate the billboards that are there. There are four states of the union that have banned billboards for years. And so it's still relevant, but it was very relevant starting in 1965 with the Highway Beautification Act that imposed federal rules restrictions on billboards and particularly in the rural areas. However, yet again, as is theme of the book, Signs of Opportunity, by the way, bad luck was good fortune. So a lot of people in the industry when that bill passed over the period from 1965 to 1975, our industry was very decentralized. It was basically, there was a couple of really big companies in the major markets and then literally hundreds and hundreds of companies spread across America, mom and pops everywhere. I mean, almost every billboard company was a local company in that town in maybe one or two little areas. So Kevin Sr, he would basically scour the South particularly, but also other, we got out in a couple of, got to Dayton, Ohio, got to Colorado Springs, Colorado and those places. But talking to the families, family to family, these are family owned companies. Ours is a family owned company. Theirs is almost always a family owned company, corporate outfits. And these people were nervous. They wanted to cash out. They didn't know the future of the industry. And Kevin Sr. Had the foresight to know that no, we're going to be around and maybe it was his legislative experience, but he saw that anyway. So we started buying up companies and extraordinary period of expansion. I mean, the company is huge now. I mean, we couldn't imagine back in the 60s, we'd be where we are now. But if you really got down to the numbers, Kevin Sr, or under Kevin Sr. Leadership, the revenue of the company multiplied 10 or 20 fold. So under Kevin Jr, it was fantastic because it reached a billion dollars in value but it still has a multiple. Wasn't near as what his father had done. So when you start well, of course, it's the old scale. When you start off tiny, you can get