 Sports Clinic and for 34 of those years, we have Rich Tucker who has come here for more than three decades as a sponsor and I want to know Rich, how did you get involved in the Winter Sports Clinic? I was involved through an association we had in the pharmaceutical industry that focused on the government and military which was AMSIS and one of our members heard about the clinic being formed and suggested that if we had any interest in looking into sponsorship that we should take the opportunity to go out to Snowmass Village and evaluate the clinic. So four of us flew out from different companies, spent the week out here and the experience was mind blowing. I've been hearing that all week. It is. I mean I'm not overstating probably understating but from the beginning I thought geez you know where where could you go to spend your money in a worthy place and if you think about business a return on investment this clinic the return on an investment is unbelievable compared to other going to a convention and running a convention and what do you get out of the convention you know it's still questionable but as a real late as a result of my trip out I did go to our CEO who was a former marine and told him all about it and suggested that we would consider that and before I left his office I had a commitment for the Golden Medal sponsorship and that was the beginning and the four of us went to our respective companies and we all ended up with being sponsors but more importantly because we both all four of us were part of the military surgeons in the United States we came back to our quarterly meetings and started to educate and inform all other representatives of the opportunities and the next year not only the four of us came out but there were 12 and we formed like a little team for a lack of it crossing barriers from one industry or to another or one company to another and every quarter we would talk about the clinic and the DAV came to our meeting and actually set up a table cushioning table and started recruiting volunteer sponsors and from that point it really made a difference and we never looked back yeah definitely and I never look back it is only snowballed from there how have you seen the clinic evolve these 34 years oh the first one I thought was fantastic I don't know how it could ever change but every year the number of volunteers that came up the amount of adaptive sports instructors coming the number of veterans coming it just grew as far as the volume of the clinic but more importantly it became aware to all of us by experiencing seeing the veterans when they came in the very first day and how timid they were about ever thinking about going up on a mountain or skiing or rock climbing or swimming it was unbelievable how it changed between Monday and Friday Friday all you saw were smiles and at the closing ceremony it was so uplifting yeah and I mean so we're here in basalt colorado which is about 12 miles away from snowmass and we're here for fly fishing if you guys haven't figured that out already and the fish are definitely biting and you actually bring your family out here I should first of all I should mention you're a proud navy veteran as well you bring your family out here and I've I've had an opportunity to talk to your son Ryan Katie a little bit your daughter and your granddaughter Amelia three generations of tuckers out here and they've grown up with the clinic and I know Ryan talked about how the first time he came to the clinic when he was about seven that it was the first time that he's ever seen people with you know amputated legs or they were in a wheelchair or really spent a lot of time with them and he said that kind of set in motion the fact that shine a light on the fact that there are people with differences here in this in this world and that what we're doing here and what you have done as a sponsor is help overcome some of those challenges and I just you know we can't thank you enough and what does that mean to you as a father to hear that oh I am so proud of the kids like any father would be but they they have been very open about talking about what they got out of the clinic and my children I'm paraphrasing and said you know I can go they can go to a grocery store or a mall and they'll see somebody with a disability maybe in a chair or in crutches or even walking with an amputee walking and a lot of the people and children happen to stare because they don't understand what was going on and not being male malicious right just didn't know and they felt so good that they knew all these veterans and after the first time they were there they knew practically everybody that was a participant and it made it was very valuable for them from a growth point of view but then after the first year they said we want to go back yeah and and instead of going on a vacation per se we plan to come to clinic year after year and fortunately enough we were able to do that and and today like you said now the third generation I've got a another eight-year-old the the first two were seven or nine so she's right in the middle she's going to be growing up with this clinic maybe you know yep oh they're talking already about coming back next year as well they make friendships that last a lifetime absolutely all the participants here and even the employees who are here with the VA which we co-present this event every year with the Department of Veterans Affairs could not happen without them and my last question here Rich is maybe someone out there is a company or an organization and they're thinking about donating to the Winter Sports Clinic why should they I think from a community perspective or a philanthropic position I don't think you could invest in anything that would return an investment and to take take the opportunity to join as this as a sponsor if you look at the return investment you come out here and spend the time at the clinic and look around and you'll see the returns it's priceless it is absolutely priceless awesome well thank you so much Rich for being with me and make sure you're following along at hashtag winter sports clinic across all social media you can also check out sports four vets that sports the number four vets just go ahead and google that they'll bring you the VA's adaptive sports website uh thanks a lot I'm Matt Sancing and I'm gonna go see if I can go fishing