[00:00:00] My awkward bone is broken. So, um, what makes other people awkward in situations, I’m just, I don’t feel that. Very standoffish, marine ish. He would stand a little bit too close, he would very intently look in your eyes, and never look away. A lot of people, when they first come here, and they don’t know Andrew, they think, He’s this rich California kid and born with a silver spoon in his mouth and all he cares about is money.

And it ain’t him at all. Me and Amy talked about it and I said, Amy, you need to get him out of his shell. He needs to get up there and he needs to tell his story. The employees need to know Andrew’s life. They need to know what he grew up in. They need to know how he was. They need to know what got you guys to this mission in your company.

I said, they need to hear that. And they need to hear it from him. My name is Andrew Dobbins. I’m president and CEO of Intelligent Design. We’re based out of Tucson, Arizona. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, a little island [00:01:00] off of Oakland called Alameda. My original plan was to either go Marine Recon or Navy SEALs after doing college so that I could go in as an officer.

Shortly after high school, I, um, I got into some, uh, some use of psychedelic drugs. Party on Friday and Saturday night and then repent on Sunday. I knew after, after that semester of college that I needed to get away from The people that I was hanging around with and made the decision to go in and I could always go and get the degree later and go officer after that.

But I ended up about two years in changing platoons and went to a platoon where there was a few guys living that old lifestyle on the weekends. And, uh, and started out just going out with them on the weekends and then, um, ended up going out and, uh, partaking again. I prayed out to God. I’m like, you know what?

I’m, I’m done with this. I, whatever it takes, tear this out of my life. I don’t want it here anymore. And, uh, ended up going again the next weekend. Um, and as [00:02:00] we left the club that night, we all got arrested. Yeah, so I spent about, uh, 120 days in the brig. And, uh, a lot of time to, uh, to pray and seek the word and figure out, okay, what, you know, you know, if you really pray out to God and cry out to him, he’s going to answer your prayer and not necessarily in the way that you think.

But it definitely got me on the right path before I was out of the Marine Corps, just in prayer, trying to pray on where I’m to go and what I’m to do, um, through a series of different scriptures and, um, and events. I felt directed to come to Tucson. So in getting out of the Marine Corps, I’m at Quantico, Virginia.

So packed up my boxes and my snowboard and hopped on a Greyhound to Tucson.

I was just looking for sales jobs and scrolled through the list, looked at the one that said they [00:03:00] paid the most and went and interviewed and got the job. Worked for other people for about five years and then started my own company. I went out and did the sales and I basically gave away the other stuff to this guy named John.

We had been talking about, uh, one, the profitability of the company also expanding the business to try and grow it in another market. It became very clear that he was not going to take us in the kingdom business direction. And he also didn’t want to, uh, go to the Phoenix market. I just was like, this is, this is gotta end.

So, uh, just before. We, uh, we made the move and we actually moved our family to Phoenix. We took a sales manager and who was a Christian and moved him to, uh, the senior leadership role. I thought he could lead the team while I was managing to grow Phoenix. That did not go well. We had been on a path to want to do kingdom business, but we really couldn’t because we were away and other people were creating the [00:04:00] culture.

So, uh, once again, Hey, I want to have a kingdom business. I want to do this. Just like, Hey God, tear this out of my life. He did it again. Not the way that I wanted. I get the phone call that, uh, he’s just looked at the financials and have them conversations that he needed to, uh, and made the decision that he has moved to Tucson.

He’s not coming back. He has to save this business or it’s going to be closed. And that’s not the way that we do our family. So immediately I knew we’re going to have to move. We essentially shut down Phoenix so that we could mend Tucson. So the ministry that I was leading centers all around youth. And at that time we had a team of missionaries that were traveling the country and the bus that they were in broke down and we couldn’t get it fixed.

Which left 12 adults in addition to my family and me being nine months [00:05:00] pregnant Living in our house in the middle of this crisis in the

business and crisis in the ministry I have our fourth child. So we called, uh, some mentors of ours and, uh, the counsel that we got was not what we were expecting. Uh, because Amy and I are, uh, are the kind of people that overcome whatever obstacle is there and figure out a way to do it.

And the suggestion was, what is God telling you to do? Is he really telling you to just push forward and just keep going? Is it possible he’s telling you to stop? Business in general, as we knew it, had to die in a very painful way, in the transition, the way that it happened, in order for something new and beautiful to be born.

The

Adam before intelligent design, um, manic depressive, bipolar, [00:06:00] addict, very far from God, just a dropout in every sense, every sense of the word. I had stopped living, uh, been through divorces and gangs and a whole lot of things. Intelligent Design, it’s enabled me to iron out kinks in myself. It’s helped me work through the bumps in the road and really given me space to succeed and encouragement to do it.

And, and the safe zone. Adam Wise, uh, is a very, a very good brother of mine, as well as, uh, uh, somebody that I’ve helped manage here. He achieved, uh, A reward, um, from, from good performance. Um, and we asked him what he would like to do. He said that he needed to get over his fear of heights. And so he decided to go ziplining.

We kept saying, wow, I can’t believe that a [00:07:00] company encourages us to build and, um, be together. And just, just love on each other, basically. And, and he took the opportunity to overcome a fear as well, so. Thank you. Being able to come here during a panic attack and stay at work and become productive by the end of the day.

For 30 plus years of my life, I didn’t have the courage to tell people that I knew that I was suffering from those things and to come into my workplace and feel that that was the appropriate thing to do rather than hold on to my dog and just let everybody think that I was a flake. That’s a miracle.

That’s, it’s amazing. So that’s what this place has done for me. Had what we were doing and the way that we viewed business and the way that we were running business not died, we wouldn’t have been able to see what we’re seeing now. We wouldn’t have the fruit that we do. We wouldn’t have truly been able to see in the kingdom come into our [00:08:00] marketplace business.

The old Marty was very, uh, very cutthroat. Very, um, just down to business, really. I feel what changed is, uh, my desire to help people, uh, rather than use people. What I saw that caused that shift was mainly, I would say, seeing people genuinely care about me, and, uh, backing it up with more than just words, but action.

Having relationship with, uh, with the staff and it just, the whole style that, that we’ve now brought in is, is not to manage the tasks, but to love the people. I’ve learned that people see me as my current actions. I’ve, I’ve separated from the past. And so it’s really helped me just look at myself like a man.

I feel like I’m a, I’m a functioning member of society, which I didn’t see [00:09:00] becoming possible at one point. My, my children. Can be proud of their father and, and in so many more ways, but not only that it’s, it’s a light to God. The job’s a light to God. There’s been many times as, uh, we’ve grown the company.

I look back at how easy it was just doing the sales and not having to do all of the other stuff that it takes, uh, as an owner. It’s just a much higher level of, of satisfaction in knowing we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing.