Episode 69: Remembering Mike Sankey

Today we are honoring and remembering my good friend Mike Sankey, a man who shaped this industry and shaped the people in it, myself included.

Mike Sankey founded BRB Publications and wrote the books that became the bible of the screening industry, the MVR Book and the MVR Decoder. He was a founding force behind PBSA, the inaugural recipient of the PBSA Lifetime Achievement Award now named in his honor, and a man who somehow found time for racehorses, can-collecting ventures, and a years-long Groucho Marx glasses tradition that became legendary at every NAPBS dinner. In this episode, the people who knew him best share what made him so unforgettable, both as a businessman and as a friend.

Pro Conversation You Don't Want to Miss!

• How Mike's MVR Book and MVR Decoder became required reading for the entire industry, and why one colleague said skipping them would have set the field back years
• The phone call that turned standards into guidelines, and how Mike and John Kloos got nine vendor guidelines finished in nine months
• The founding member idea that helped launch PBSA off of fourteen thousand dollars
• Mike's legendary Groucho Marx glasses tradition, and the prank he pulled on Derek Hinton involving a fake family photo album from people who never existed
• A heartfelt letter from Mike's brother Mark on what it meant to work side by side with him for twenty years without a single heated argument

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Thanks to our sponsor, PreemploymentDirectory.com, publisher of Background Buzz and numerous other resources. And a special thanks to W. Barry Nixon.

Connect with US:

• Les Rosen- https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesterrosen/
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel- https://www.youtube.com/@BehindtheSCreens200

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Without Mike Sankey's book, we we all could have been put back three or four years. We wouldn't have been where we could be to make this happen. Well, you know what? You missed four years, you might be gone all together. I mean I think his ability to do that when he did it was critical to the success of PVS.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Welcome to Behind the Screens Conversations with Background Screen Pros. I'm Lust Rosen, your host, and I'm excited to have you here. On this podcast, we chat with the people who know the background screen world inside and out. Executive industry experts, legal pros, and more. We dive into their personal stories and insights to give you a real look at what's happening behind the scenes. Whether you work in screen industry or are just curious. Behind the screens bring you the real, unfiltered conversations from the people who make it all happen. Stick around for stories you won't hear anywhere else. Ladies and gentlemen, Les Rosen here, welcoming you to another session of Behind the Screens Conversation with Background Street Pros. And today is a very, very special session where we are honoring and remembering our good friend and colleague, Mr. Mike Sankey. And for those who knew Mike, well, you're gonna know a lot more about him. And for those that may not have known him or known him well, I think it's really important that we we talk about him because he has such a tremendous influence, both professionally and personally. As you know, we at the PBSA uh honors Mike's memory with the PBSA Mike Sankey Lifetime Achievement Award. And it's named after Mike, not only because of his contributions to NAPBS, not PBSA, but because of its impact on people and who he was as a person. And I'm honored that we have today's panel with us. Today on our panel is first of introduce Lynn Sankey Mike liked to introduce Lynn as his first wife. Also, Derek Hinton, uh friend of the show who's been with us before, and coming out of retirement, coming out from seclusion.

unknown 2:27

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

For us all to see, John, put your face on the screen, Mr. John Cluce. And for those of you that are watching this on video, you will notice that Lynn and John are sharing a computer in Phoenix. And so hopefully you'll you'll see and hear both. And for those of you that are listening to the audio, it'd be well, it doesn't matter. So, first of all, let's start off by asking everyone where are you calling in from the day? So, Lynn and John, where are you guys today?

SPEAKER_03 2:59

I'm in Phoenix, that's where I live. It's a nice place, but right now it's sort of hot. No, I'm actually Phoenix. Oh, Scott's Till is across the street. And now for Lynn, who I think might be in the same place.

SPEAKER_06 3:13

All right. Well, I'm Tempie.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

All right, Lynn, you're from Tempy. I mean, let me make sure you're a little further from the computer so you have to talk nice and loud. And and and for those of you that never heard the story, John's house where he's calling from is famous in the annals of PBSA and PBS history because a early meeting was held there apart in in Phoenix, and there was a party at John's house, and everyone still knows that as the party where the rice never got cooked. John, you probably thought I forgot about that, but I had to mention that. And Derek, where are you calling from today?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

I am calling from Northeast Oklahoma, Grand Lake. I mean, CRA Zoom on base world headquarters is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That's usually where I'm at, but today I'm I'm at.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Great. And and Derek, welcome back. Derek did me the favor of being a guest on a previous program that is available on the behind the screens YouTube list and whatever your favorite podcast has found. And before we jump into the details, to give you an idea of why I think it's so important that we honor Mike and remember Mike, I have three people I like to give quick quotes from that I think will set the scene. Jason Morris wrote in that the first thing I'll say about Mike is I miss him very much. He was the first person I'd seek out at every conference and always got a big hug. Likewise, every time I was in Phoenix, we get together. Mike and I shared another bond. He was a lifelong Cleveland Indian sports fan, and we always had that in common. Mike taught me almost everything I know about operating CRA, especially in the very early days of the industry. And Melissa Foyleys uh told me that when I started work with a small startup, one of my earliest blogs in the industry was focused on interviewing Mike. He was so kind, candid, and humble. He was so welcoming to me and shared freely. And I appreciated him taking the time to talk with a newbie from a tiny group. He meant the world to me. And Julie Hackman wrote in that Mike is a very special guy. His contributions to the industry are truly some of the most selfless and noble, always passionate about serving the greater good for all. He embodies altruism in everything he does while embracing a great sense of humor along the way. And we'll be talking about that sense of humor. Derek has some great stories about that. Mike Wicked's sense of humor is something that we'll be talking about. So, Lynn, let's start with you. You're the first person in this group that knew Mike going way back when. Tell us about your early days with Mike. Where did you guys meet? Where did you get married? Go ahead, the floor is yours.

SPEAKER_06 5:53

Um, let's see, Michael's sister, Patricia, introduced me to Michael. And I actually got to meet Michael the first time at Mark's tanky stirring at the birthday party.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Mark's Mike's brother.

SPEAKER_06 6:05

Mike's brother, right. And make sure you talk to Mike so you can hear you. And it was a lot of fun. Oh, I pushed his sister Patricia in the swimming pool. And Michael came over to push me in, and I said, Don't you dare. And he backed off. And Mark's sake, he said, Bullshit, she's going in. So Mark pushed me in. And then Michael sent me an extra pair of clothes, and it was addressed to the Women's Wrestling Federation and said, Next time I go to a party, bring bring an extra set of clothes. So, anyways, that was our first time I met him. And we were married within a year. So I met him April 25th, and we got married April 2nd. So that was straight quick.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Oh, congratulations. And Mike has some pretty interesting jobs in his early years and some ventures when he started out. You shared some of that with me. What comes to mind in that area? I I know you mentioned trash, aluminum machines, horses, flipping houses, real estate investment. He did it all.

SPEAKER_06 7:12

Yeah, he did. So when he was um a senior in college, he needed to do an internship, and his degree was in recreation.

SPEAKER_05 7:22

So it was perfect. A degree of recreation, I love it.

SPEAKER_06 7:25

So he had uh found out that you could get a contract with the state to pick up the trash of the state parks. So he got his pickup truck and a few friends, and he went to our the lake, so the Apache Lake, Canyon Lake, Roosevelt Lake, and picked up the trash and took it to the dome. And I don't know how well he did that. He called it Acme Swill. But anybody that went on the route with him was invited to the summer kicknick party. And but you had to you had to go pick up trash with him to get invited to the party. And then he worked for an uh inventory company, and that's probably the only time he worked for he wasn't actually an employee. And then he started, went to Denver, started Rapid Info. Oh, he was doing real estate flipping homes prior to that, and then up to Denver for Rapid Info, and yeah, and then always had a passion for horses and oh the can machine. So that happened while we were married, and he met an investor that wanted him to buy into these can machines that you they had like at the grocery store, where you come in, you dump your aluminum cans, and it would weigh it out and dispense money. His name was Bill Brownley, and he told Michael how his father trained racehorses. They jumped right on that, and for years, probably about 10 years or so, they had racehorses.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

You know, I don't think a lot of people knew about Mike's hidden passion for horses. Mike always threatened to take me down to the track, we never got to it, and occasionally he would call me and tell me he won. Not very much, but he won something. Tell us about that. Mike and horse racing.

SPEAKER_06 9:14

They he ended up with three business partners. At one point, they had 20 horses. He loved breeding. He just loved the whole the science of what horse was gonna to breed what horse with another horse to come up with the Kentucky Derby winner. And of course, we never had that Kentucky Derby winner, but there was always a horse that paid for the other horses. So that was the key. Because you have enough horses, one of them's gonna win enough times to pay for all the other horses. So that's pretty much what that was what we did. He loved it.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

How did Mike get started down the road in the screening world? I I know you told me about Rapid Info, and and he was one of the early DMV providers and wrote the DMV recorder. Tell us about that a little bit. What do you remember about that?

SPEAKER_06 10:01

So he purchased Rapid Info, I believe it was called Rapid Info at that time, by a guy named Ed Bach. And I think I'm correct in in this. And this was before my time. So I think he developed Rapid Info for seven, eight years, had hired Joe Lambright to come in as a partner. And it was about that time that I met him that they had decided to sell. Michael had about ten offices of ten states and a company called PMS, and they bought Rapid Info from what two days before we got married. So Michael's life changed overnight. Literally changed overnight. So, anyways, yes, Rapid Info was he was able to buy driving records from the states. He would run down and pick up the driving records, and then he ended up with a huge computer room like this was back in the days when computers took up rooms. They weren't just little laptops, right? And he would get orders from insurance agents, and then he would get the driving records and get them back to the insurance agents faster than if they went straight to the state to driving records. So that's what that was about. And then when after he sold Rabbit Info, he was like, What do I do? And he was recognized that a lot of people didn't understand the different laws in each state for driving records, for penalties. And then also when they did get a driving record, how do you read it? That's all in these codes and points and who trades driving records that you know, right? So that's when you decided to write the books on the MVR book was the first one, then the NVR decoder book, and then from there the source book and the hundred that he did in Raptor.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

And and and then at that point it became uh BRB publications, right?

unknown 12:01

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Yeah. And you know, a little bit of history, Mike started BRB Publications, Mark was involved, a gentleman that a lot of us may not recall, but just one of the shining stars in the data industry, Carl Ernst. Derek knows him well, just a genius. The guy was so smart that I would just listen to him and pretend I knew what he was talking about, because it was always profound. I was embarrassed as happened. I don't fall though, but Mike was sort of the head person. And for those of you don't remember, Bear B Publications was the nation's premier publisher of references and websites used for locating public records. And uh their books and electronic products pointed the way to over 28,000 government agencies and 3,500 public record vendors. And the the uh MVR book and the MVR decoder were really the Bibles of the industry. Everyone had those. Every year you waited for the new one. So Derek, you remember all those days? You want to add to that?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

I remember them well. Mike was a competitor at Rapid Info when I was at DAC for driving records, and then we had a book called The Guide to Background Investigations, kind of a precursor to the source book. We had to update, we updated it once every two years. We'd hire about 10 to 15 temps to go and you know, we'd mail a letter to every county, and the temps would type it in, call the ones that weren't there. And it was really a pain in the patuotie, you know, with with with all these temps. So I knew that Mike was doing some branching out in the county locator and some other books right then, and so I called him out of the blue one day, and I think Annette answers the phone. And, you know, can I ask who's calling? And this is Derek Hinton with the guide to background investigations. Mike picked up the phone and said, hello, in that low voice of his, like, why are you calling? I know you're Dak, you're the guide to background investigations. You're the only competitor I have. But for a while, we just kind of did a uh deal where they did they were doing the research anyway for UCC Guide and some other stuff. So they did all the research and we paid them for the research. And Carl Ernst, who you talked about, wrote scripts. And so for a while before we sold the book to him and it turned into the source book, it was two different books with the same research information. And that's how I first met Mike. It was kind of scary calling him up, and especially with that hello. But I know any better, I wouldn't have been scared.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

And I mean, I'll put in a couple comments here. Fred Giles wrote a note that Mike was a leader and source of information even before NAPBS talking about the BRB books and the all the publications. Kurt Schwall told me that without Mike Sankey and his resource materials, the background screening industry's development would have been delayed by several years. For those of us who have been in the industry for 20 plus years, we know that we could not have performed background checks without the help of the source book for public records and other materials published by BRB. And that is a fact. So often the question back then was, how do I get this and who do I need to contact? And those answers always, or so would say, can be found through Mike's reference materials. A background screen company simply could not function without these materials back in the early days. And though he may not have been aware of it at the time, that his books would help incubate a new and explosive growth industry, and it did just that. And thanks, Kurt, for sharing those comments. So let's move on then. Derek, what do you recall about BRB most fondly in the uh some of those early days?

SPEAKER_00 15:47

With the early days, he was just fun to work with. He was a teaser. After you know, BRB, we you know kind of got to work, I did a criminal record book. We had one for in-house, and it was more of a pamphlet than a book, and sent it to him, and I said, You need to do a book of this. And I he wants to read about criminal records. I think he kind of had in mind an MVR book. Well, let's do a criminal book. And so uh he finally talked me into it and I sent it to him, and I thought it was gonna be a long process because he said, You misled me after he got it. And he said, This is you know, this is gonna work. And I still didn't believe him. But he said, You misled me, this is farther along than I had expected.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

So you you see he didn't expect much from you? I'm I'm not following. Jerry, I've known you I'm not I've known you so long, so that was a cheap shot. I apologize. Maybe not the last one.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

He was the one who really pushed me into doing that thing. You know, not if it wasn't for him, I'd never, you know, who wants to read about criminal records.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

What was it like? As I'll share in a moment my experience working with Mike as as an editor, what was it like for you?

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Not too many disagreements, actually. He had a few, but he would, you know, it went a lot quicker and a lot smoother than I thought it would.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

You thought. Well, I'll chime in here. You know, Mike was my editor of the Safe Hiring Manual, and that came out in 2000. The first one was 2004, the last one was 2017, so it may be a little out of date now, but it was the first sort of comprehensive book on background screening. And I remember when I when I gave Mike my first draft, he uh edited a couple of pages and he just sent it all back and said, basically, nah, this this is not what we're looking for. Try again.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

You probably like you do your emails just to, you know, spell check. Never heard of it.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Yeah, spell check it, yeah, exactly. But I took it to heart and everything that Mike said, and something that people may not appreciate about Mike is that and about writing a book, is that writing the book was easy. I mean, I I turned down a couple thousand pages of material, that that was no problem. That's just 10% of the effort. Mike put in the other 80%, it's all about the editing. And Mike just edited every letter of every word of every sentence of every paragraph of every page of every chapter, and you know, it didn't change the content. I mean, all the thoughts and the materials were still there, but the way it was organized, the way it was expressed, and so you know, I just had such a tremendous respect for his editing ability and for his ability, and and and Lynn knows this better than me just to sit down and I guess for hours pouring over material and writing and editing, right? I mean, it's just such a unique skill. And without him, I don't think there never would have been a safe hiring manual, and and so I'm forever grateful for that. And so that that that was my my my first experience. And and obviously, Mike, you know, well, I'll talk about BBSA in a little bit, but Mike pioneered the county court guide and DMV guy. And I guess on a personal note, I'll add that when my daughter was a freshman at ASU in Tampi, Mike and Lynn volunteered to look after her if anything happened. And uh it turned out nothing happened, and but it sure made my wife and I feel much more comfortable that Lynn and Mike were within 10 minutes of her if something should have happened. So, Lynn, I still appreciate that. You know, you were never called upon for anything, but just knowing you were there was such a great relief. And you know, one of the things that uh my wife and I you know let us sleep at night. John, you um were there, and I'm gonna bring you in, John and Derek. You you were there as the presenters when Mike was the inaugural recipient of the PBSA Lifetime Achievement Award. Tell us about that. What what did you what do you recall about that? What did you share, or what would you like to share about that? John, go ahead, then Derek. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

By the way, I do feel like that guy on CNN in the talking heads and nobody talks to him. It's not like I'm a Republican. And now switching to John Clues.

SPEAKER_04 19:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

This is fine. This is all this is all fine. You know, uh here, okay, so that award and being invited to, you know, talk about Mike and why he deserved it. Let's just say this. I've given more than my share of PBSA presentations, but that was a privilege. Okay, I mean it just was. Yeah, and I took it very seriously because I knew I had, I don't know, five or ten minutes to talk. And how do I explain what that guy did at the beginning of this whole thing? So Kurt Schwal, Kurt Schwal, you quoting Kurt, Kurt's one of the smartest men in this industry, and he's paying me a hundred dollars to say that. Seriously, what he said was without Mike Sankey's book, we all could have been put back three or four years. We wouldn't have been where we could be to make this happen. Well, you know what? You missed four years, you might be gone all together. I mean, I mean his ability to do that when he did it was critical to the success of people. And I knew that, and I just was very, very pleased to be there and say y'all some nice and things.

unknown 21:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Fantastic. And and Derek? Yeah, I mean, uh it was an honor. And I remember it being, you know, a happy time, you know, in retrospect. I wanted it to be kind of more of the humor and jovial, you know, about Mike as a person. I mean, it was better than the alternative at that time, you know.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Yeah, we we definitely laid out some you know what there, yeah. We didn't we weren't necessarily kind. That that just doesn't mean we weren't respecting you. Respect.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

And it was good to be around the kids, you know. Lynn, I hadn't seen your your kids since they were bound. Around in the back of an RV in Tulsa on one of your trips. So it was fun to see what an impressive young man and daughter that she had. So that was fun too.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

And Lynn, let's bring you back in. You're you were you were there with Kristen and and Max, Maxim. What do you remember about the ceremony when Mike received the Lifetime Sheatman Award?

SPEAKER_06 22:22

I was really proud of him. That's all I can say. I was just I just was beaming.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Oh, that's really nice.

SPEAKER_06 22:32

I know.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

All right. I've never I never seen him nervous, but it's all right.

SPEAKER_06 22:36

Yeah, it was a different sight for me to see too.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:41

He didn't like attention on himself. Right. And he would never talk about himself. And as one of his pet peeves, is you know, when somebody goes on and on about themselves, they they get in trouble. Right.

SPEAKER_05 22:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Well, let me sort of augment that discussion with Mike and the PBSA. And, you know, without trying to bore anyone with ancient history, Mike was basically, I could say, my mentor or guru, or person I went to during the early days of PBSA when we had the steering committee, and I was the chair, and Mike was on that. And Mike always had great ideas, was great to bounce things off of. Two things that really come to mind is that when we started APBS, we actually had no money. Like we finally ended up collecting like $14,000. So the whole thing was launched with $14,100. And we were running a membership campaign, and Mike had the idea. And this said, why don't you do a make it so that if you join within a certain period of time, you are a founding member? And I think that founding member status and getting people was really instrumental in getting a lot of firms to join. That was really Mike's idea. And Mike also introduced me to IMI, the association company, and arranged for a dinner. I met IMI and I selected them to be the association organization to help get us off the ground. And of course, I had no actual authority to do that because when you start a new association, it's chicken in the edge. There's nothing official yet, and you can't become official until you start. How do you start if you're not official? And so IMI was kind enough to accept my signature on the contract. I was always wondering if somehow I would be held personally responsible if things didn't work out, but it always worked out. And then we ran the membership campaign and had a membership and had elections and became official. And Mike was just so instrumental in all that happening. So that was just uh uh you know, just a wonderful time where we just said, hey, like it was like an old Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland movie, let's let's put on the musical in the barn.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

And so we just all did it.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

No, we did no permission and no authorization, but we just did it. And because there was Mike was you know, a big part because Mike was on it, everyone trusted him. And yet you need trust and transparency and commitment to a greater goal to get kind of get in past this period where you don't really exist in order to create something that does exist. So I always appreciate Mike, everything Mike did with that. John, let me bring you back in for a second. You're you're you're good out of the camera, so we'll butch you back in the camera. You lived in Phoenix, you lived near Mike. What do you recall about him in the early days? And we'll get to the later days later, but the early days of PBSA and DRB and the screening industry.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Sure. So, you know, I came from outside. I did not know anything about background screening other than I had one a couple of years earlier. So the one of the first things I recognized about Mike was that he knew a hell of a lot more about it than I did. And he was very, very willing to share it, right? I mean, he didn't dodge anything. And he didn't make anything up. If he didn't know the answer to my question, he'd say, I don't know. You know, which is just such a wonderful thing to do in situations like that. The other thing was that he was very interested in technology, right? And so he was digging with me. So our very first meeting, which happened because somebody said, You live in Venus, why don't you go see Mike Sankey? Okay, who's Mike Sankey? You know, so I wind up there, and I think the first meeting lasted three hours. It was just all very good. He was an honest guy, he was an intelligent guy, he had a good sense of humor. I mean, what else do you need? And also, he'd stand up for if you needed. You guys put me on the, I guess Larry Henry had to step back because he was going to be doing something else. And you guys threw me on the board of first board of directors as a the vendor representative. Okay, so that's great. Well, I also knew the guys who were on the accreditation program, right? And I was watching that happen, and I was talking to some of them, and they're like, you know, John, this isn't easy. I mean, I'm I'm sitting here backing some standards that I don't think I can do.

unknown 27:11

Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

I'm putting myself out of business here. And more than one person said that. So I could see that's a tough one. Well, the like the very next week we had a board meeting, and they said, Hey, John, here's your assignment. We have nine different vendor standards that we want to document. You know, so like, you know, criminal databases, you know, county criminal checks, uh, you you know, verifications. We we need standards for those. Um saying. Really? You sure? Yes, yes, yes. We need those. I'm sitting there. Nine. I mean, that's not a project, that's a life sentence. I mean, I can't I can't do that. Even though we had very good volunteers to help, very good volunteers. Yeah, you know, Tim Baxter was involved with that. All those guys, I mean, there was no shortage of those people coming to say, hey, we want to do this right. You see, well, yeah, that's what gets gets these things in trouble, is that you know, you have your way, the guy next to you is his way, and you got to do both, you know. Well, Argent, this is really tough, right? So I'm sitting there thinking, well, how do I do this?

unknown 28:17

Right?

SPEAKER_03 28:17

I'm looking at I'm looking at an accreditation standard that's taken a long time, take a lot longer than people thought. What do I do in this situation? And I thought, you know, why are we calling them standards? Why don't we call them guidelines? And that and that just kind of hit me. I ran it by the guys who were volunteering and they said, Hey, what's the big difference? It's a big difference. Don't worry about it, but trust me, there's a big difference. So, what I do, I pick up the phone and call Mike. Mike, I need an opinion. And if you think what I'm coming up with here is a good idea, I need help. And I told him what I was thinking and why. I I thought it was the right way to go. I said, I'll call you back tomorrow.

unknown 29:02

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

He didn't give me an answer right away. He but he said, I'll call you back tomorrow. And he did, and he said, You're right, you'll never get it done if you don't do it this way. And and he says, and we can always turn them into a standard. And they said, Right. Get a guideline out there. See if people like it, and if they like it, you know, because it's not like a credit issue, it's not about CRAs, it's about sports. So we did that, and you know what? We did all nine of them in nine months. Oh. They were there, we're all done. That's great. And I felt very accomplished, but I'm not sure that happens without Mike. I'm not sure that happens without him in the board meeting saying, hey, this is a good idea. Right. So that's my impression of that man, and we became fast friends very quickly. We played by the rules, we didn't, you know, favor the other one, you know, we we we just we just were good friends and we helped each other. And it literally was, you know, what I remember as the original and probably still attitude at NAPBS. Right. Yeah, you walk in the door, hey, you know, you're gonna help everybody. Right. And that was the same, that was the same kind of thing. So that's what I did early on.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Oh, that's great. You know, it's it's interesting. You talk about the fact that Mike helps you get your enterprise off the ground. Barry Nixon wrote me that Mike has been very instrumental to the success of the pre-employment directory, which is one of the sponsors of the podcast. Barry went on to say he always has been a great source of information and advice. As a rookie in the industry, Barry referring to himself many years ago, he helped me learn about the many idiosyncrasies of the industry and has been a guiding force in our development. Given the many synergies in our respective organizations, we have partnered and worked together for many years. He has been particularly helpful in guiding us through sharing his knowledge about printing publications as we started to develop our industry resource and buyer guide. And two quick comments, and I'll summarize. Bob Bell from Clearstar wrote to me that without Mike, there'd be no ClearStar. Bob recounts that in 1995 Clearstar, which was then known as Compass, was exploring entering the background screening industry as a software provider. Mike Bob said he went to the local public library, it was, and libraries were a thing back then before the internet, and asked the reference librarian, who has now been replaced by Google, if there were any books on background screenings. And in a dark corner of the library, at the top shelf alone were two books published by BRB, and they found Mike's phone number, called Mike, Mike answered the phone, probably the same way Derek recalls. We pitched our idea, and Mike and his partner, Carl Ernst, spent countless hours over the next few months giving us the ins and outs of the market, providing us free information, including several books from BRB at no charge. Mike was our friendly barometer and our industry pastor, which is why he was always referred to as Brother Bob in the Clear Star offices. And on a more personal note, Bob recounts a time that he's recovering from a severe medical issue, and he had not eaten solid food or traveled for four months. And during that time, Mike would check in on him during via text and to see how he was doing. And Bob said when he regained his strength, Mike called and said, You know, I have changed the spring training. Come stay at the house and go to game. So I did. I stayed at Casa Sankey for several days, ate solid food for the first time in months. And he says, Thank you, Lynn. And by the way, Lynn, I did I've had some wonderful dinners at your house, and I thank you too. And went to an angels game with some other industry characters. And the next day, Mike took me to the horse races and then walked me around, explained the ins and outs of the sports, and is very passionate about it. And he says, This was Mike, quiet, caring, and a simple man, who is one of the most genuine people I have ever had the honor of knowing. This was not the last time I stayed at Mike's house or enjoyed his company. And he mentioned something about Lynn kicking his butt off up Mount Mount the mountain there. But but Bob mentioned to me a couple times how uh you you you took him on a forced hike and he he he was impressed with your hiking and the and his ability to survive.

SPEAKER_06 33:34

He accused me of trying to kill him. And I promised him I you didn't mean to. It was not my intention.

unknown 33:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

Well, I appreciate all the comments that people contributed. We'll have one more comment before we conclude from Mark Sankey. But before going there, one of the things uh while you may not know about Mike is we talked about earlier, is it says humor? And for some reason, and Lynn, I'm gonna have to ask you about this one. Mike just loved Groucher Mark glasses. There was something about these silly glasses that uh he bought them for people, made people wear them. And he said, What was that all about?

SPEAKER_06 34:18

I wish we could ask him that he every group picture he would have his set of groucha mark bosses for everybody to wear. I mean, and I was doing photography and I did a wedding, and he said, Here, make sure, take all these. And I said, I'm not gonna ask them to put on grip glasses.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

No, oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_06 34:41

Every one of my our kids, like group sports, you know, pictures, mom, you know, parents and all that, all of them grouch amount glasses. And then he pulled him out when Max was graduating from Emory University in in Georgia, and it was parent night for the senior baseball team, and Max was mortifying.

SPEAKER_05 35:05

He goes, No, he isn't.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Dad, stop already. Oh, that's funny. And and we posted on LinkedIn uh before this program went on air a picture of everyone at a I think a 2010 uh John Clue's dinner at uh NAPBS, where Mike had uh everyone except himself, so for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Uh huh. There you go. All right.

SPEAKER_03 35:32

Give me a second. Yeah, let me explain the thing about the denny. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. So we back checked at dinners. That's all we did because you know, NAPBS said you feed them on Monday night. So, okay, great. So that's what we did. And I love your dinners, by the way. I know well, you know, the thing is always fun. They were incredibly popular, and I'm like, all we do is go to dinner. I mean, that's all we do. You know, now we we we weren't afraid to go to some off-beat places, you know, so there were some interesting dinners, but most of it was just no. We just get together and they're good people. And the other thing I did, which was really nice, is I had my customers there, but then I had what we call celebrity guests. You were a celebrity guest. Oh my god, Eric was a celebrity guest. Mike was a celebrity guest, right? Uh and I was just joking by calling up, but then you know the truth is one of my clients came up to me. He said, How do you know all these people? You know all these people are so anyway, he react it actually had a coming. Anyway, the thing about Mike and Does, he actually asked me, he says, John, that's something I want to do at the end of dinner. I said, What's that? He says, Well, I want to give everybody one of these. And I and I laughed, I laughed and laughed, right? And here's the thing about Mike. He wasn't just a humorous guy, he understood humor. And we would talk about that from time to time. What's funny, what's not funny, when do you do it, how do you deliver it? That we would talk about that because it's it's like anything else. It's part already, it's part, right? But the beauty of the Groucho Math is this it is and of itself humorous. All you gotta do is put it on, and he's glad. And if you get a lot of people to put it on, a lot of people and and it it's just pure, it's just pure goal. It's just pure goal. So that's why he did it. It was easy, right? It cost money, but you know, it it it it it always worked. It just always money. Okay, then you're back.

SPEAKER_06 37:32

That's great. I think that's a great explanation.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Oh well, I think I think I can take this off now. And before we move on from Mike's sense of humor, Derek told me, and Mike told me the same story, and it was just hilarious. Derek, tell us a story about the family album.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

He probably laughed more about it than I did with telling you the story. He knew, and this is Mike, he remembered that we went on vacation in New Mexico, and this was in the summer, and didn't say anything more about it. And at the end of the year, right before Christmas, I got a hardbound express mailed book, full color pictures all the way through, and say it was so nice meeting you, and here's little John, we didn't have him with us, but you kept asking about him, so here he is, and just on and on in this letter. And the Bickleys. It was from the Bickley's from San Diego. I could not remember. I asked, you know, Becky, my wife, I've never seen those people in my life. I really don't remember. And we thought, and I mean, we Google earthed the house in San Diego. We just racked our brains trying to figure figure this out. I mean, it was in it's an expensive piece. It wasn't just a piece of cardboard, it was, you know, an expensive book that had been express mailed. And I could not, you know, we were wondering, did we take a little hike up into Colorado and get something and just have memory loss or what? I just couldn't. And this went on, I mean, it was you know, for a couple of weeks, and it was just, I think, I don't know how many people I accused of it, and then I just Mike and I called him up and he went, Are you by any chance having any friends named Bickley? And he went, that laugh of his. And he was, I mean, it's just so impish. I think he did the same thing to his parents, didn't he? And they were up in the attic looking, you know, several years before looking for church directees from 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

So it was just they were looking for a church directory from three years ago to see the people. Lynn, Lynn, I'm sorry, you were about to say something. You wanted to go.

SPEAKER_06 39:53

Well well, what he did to his parents was part of a thing that he and a friend named Mark did with 50 people. So Mark Dauphinet had 50 uh 25 names, Michael had 25 names, and they wrote a fictitious Christmas letter and they mailed them to each other, people and went on for five years. So it was it was Frank and Jenny Lewis, and they were bizarre. They were just a made-up family that was just nuts, and no one knew who they were. I mean, they people went on and on. Like I had friends call me and say, I get these letters, these Christmas letters from somebody. I have no idea who it is. Anyway, so yeah, Michael's mom and dad went up and got their old church directories looking for who's you know, Frank and Jenny Lewis are. Went on for a long time. And then in the summers, he we would have to sit down and write personal postcards. And we would he would say, So-and-so told us you moved, and then we would take my wine and smear out the name.

SPEAKER_05 41:04

He wouldn't know who's told him they that they moved, anyways. This is how he spent his time.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

Yeah, well, I I don't know how he found so much time. He did so much, and he did had fun doing that stuff too. You know, one of the things that Mike was so proud of his family, and we we mentioned that Max and Kristen were at the award ceremony. What do they have to do these days?

SPEAKER_06 41:28

Well, they're both married. They both recently, Kristen was married in 23, and Maxim and Kristen and Ian, Max and Jen just got married last year. I'm a grandma. Kristen and Ian had a little girl in December. Who it's all great. Everybody's doing really well. They found their mates, they're happy, and you know, I can't be happier for them. It's really that was important to me.

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Oh, congratulations. Well, folks, we we covered a lot of ground here today. Before we conclude, I do want to read one more comment from Mark Sankey, Mike's brother, and and I think this really summarizes a lot, and so I'd like to read exactly what Mark sent me. Mark said that Mike was eight years older than me. It's natural for a little brother to grow up idolizing his big brother, and my admiration for Mike never diminished. As we grew older, raised families, and worked side by side for two decades, that respect only deepened. As a brother, Mike was a role model in ethics, hard work, and commitment. We worked together for 20 years, and all that time I can't recall a single heated argument between us. We didn't always agree, but he always listened to my perspective. When I had a good idea, he welcomed it. When I was wrong, he didn't criticize it. He taught and coached. That was who he was. As a father, I had a front row seat to his dedication. Living about a hundred miles from Mike and Lynn, I spent thousands of nights in their spare bedroom. I saw firsthand how deeply committed he was to his family. And even though he worked long hours, he was always there for the kids. Whether it was a ball game, a school event, or simply family time around the dinner table, his family wasn't just a priority, they were the focal point of his daily life. As a businessman, Mike achieved something very few people managed, balancing demanding work with meaningful family time. He had an unwavering commitment to accuracy, meeting deadlines, and creating the best product possible. Even during the most stressful periods, sometimes releasing as many as twenty books in a year, he always made time to answer the phones and spend time helping a friend or an acquaintance in the industry. On the amusing side, although only eight years older, Mike was much greater than I was. It was not uncommon for someone at an APBS conference convention to say, Hey Mike, I met your son, or how long have you worked with your dad? It was always enjoyable to have the opportunity to nail him, and it never goes. Old. And Mark concludes by saying, I am proud to have been Mike Sankey's brother, and I deeply appreciate the efforts of his friends at NAPBS, PBSA to keep his memory alive. Mark Sankey. So ladies and gentlemen, it's been a fantastic session. We're nearing the hour, Mark. And as is our custom, we always turn the floor over to give our guests the last word. I I think we covered anything, but if there's anything you want to add, augment, whatever, we'll start with Lynn and Derek, and then we'll go to John. So Lynn, any final additions you'd like to add?

SPEAKER_06 44:35

I just want to thank you and John and Derek for being here to do this. I you know, seven years is a long time for someone to be gone and to be thought of and honored like this in an industry. It just warms my heart, and I know he was a man of integrity. He was the best. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

Absolutely. Oh thank you. And Derek?

SPEAKER_00 44:58

Yep. I mean, we've we've talked a lot about you know Mike's you know, humor. You know, one time I told him, Mike, you're a smart guy, but you hide it really well. And that was part of it for all the nose glasses and stuff. He was a really smart guy. I think of humor remembering as you know, high, high energy, emphasis, humor, intelligence, and that kindness to help anybody in the industry without getting anything for it. Yeah. And thank you much for doing this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

And I'll augment the part about how smart he was when I worked with him on the safe hiring manual in another book. He understood it, he got it, he was able to take the material and make suggestions and massage it and do certain things. And you know, it was just was a tremendous to work with. And the guy was just no idea how he got that much energy and the um how he could put his nose to the grindstone and everything else. So just an amazing person. And John will conclude with you, but anything else you want to add?

SPEAKER_03 46:09

Yeah, I I wanted to totally touch on the football game we went to. And you might say, well, what's the big deal about a football game? And and the answer to that is there isn't a big deal. That's why it's a big deal. It's a big deal because it's not, because I'm talking about a football game that happened 2019, January 1st, 2008. The India Boys. Uh the Fiesta Bowl game. Right. And I and I had some Fiestable tickets that I've had for 20 years. I just they just happened to fall on my lap and I grabbed them. And they're so great because it's they're literally on two tickets, literally on the 50-yard line, 25 rosa. You cannot sit in a better place. And it's a bowl game, you know, it's a it's a it's a high-end bowl game. So anyway, a few weeks earlier than that, I got a call for Mike. And I'd been wanting to call and see how he's doing, but like a lot of people, he hesitated, right? You know? And then here I am sitting here at this very desk, and I see Mike Sanckin. He's calling me, right? To check in and tell me how things are going, right? And I'm sure that he made a lot of those calls. That's what you call a class act, right? Because people don't want to call. So he calls them. We're in this conversation and near the end of it. I say, so is there any chance even want to go to the Fiesta Bowl on January 1st? Because who's playing? LSU and UCL, Central Florida. Yeah, I can do that. And I said, alright, so you can do that, and I believe it, but here's the rule. If right up to the last day before, you can't, you don't think you want to do that, you just say so. If we're on the way and you say turn around, we'll turn around. If it's the second quarter, you just say we got to do. And I don't know. That's what two guys want to do on the New York Same. You want to go to a dinner football game. We get to do it. Three and a half hours worth of a game, very close, right up to the end. And so for all that time, we're not thinking, man, we're watching, listen from. And uh the reason I brought it up, because I want to thank Lynn for not stopping us. Taking away.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

John, well, that thanks for sharing. And let me thank our panel. This has just been a wonderful trip down memory lane and a wonderful chance to remember a dear friend and it you know, who's contributed to people's lives on so many different levels. And that contribution continues today. So, on behalf of behind the screens, let me thank Lynn Sankey, John Clues, Derek Hitten for joining us in this special episode, remembering our good friend Mike Tankey. Mike, we love you. And stay for our next episode. We'll be back with an episode after this, and a future episode brought to you by Barry Nixon and the Breed Flower Directory. And thank you for listening in to this episode. Thank you. Alright, that was yet another wonderful conversation with a background screen pro. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss an update. And hey, if you had a moment, we'd like for you to leave us review. For more info or to catch up in past episodes, or to make suggestions or to suggest possible future guests, head over to our website. Once again, this is your post to watch Rosen, and it's been a pleasure to bring you in another episode. See you on the next episode. Thanks.