The Deal Table

Dallas–Fort Worth is one of the fastest-growing business regions in the U.S., driven by corporate relocations, financial services expansion, and major infrastructure investment. Ken Malcolmson, President Emeritus of the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce, explains what’s behind this growth and why companies continue moving to North Texas. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT WE COVER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━...

Thomas Gleason built a career in oil and gas before buying two historic cowboy boot companies—Olsen-Stelzer Boot Company (1900) and Dixon (1889). These brands have been worn by U.S. presidents, Hollywood legends, and country music icons. In this conversation, he breaks down how he acquired legacy businesses, why custom boots are hard to scale, and how retail became the key to growth. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━...

Jay Young is a fourth-generation Texas oilman and the founder and CEO of King Operating Corporation, a privately held independent oil and gas operator based in Addison, Texas. Over nearly three decades, Jay has built King Operating into a platform that partners with more than 2,200 accredited investors to acquire, develop, and divest American energy projects across Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorad...

Advanced tech, billion-dollar programs, and autonomous drones — but does it make us safer? Preston Dunlap, Founder and Managing Partner of Arkenstone Capital & Arkenstone Ventures, explains the hidden challenges in modern warfare, revealing the risks behind high-tech defense strategies and why smart planning alone may not be enough to protect us. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT WE COVER ━━━━━━━...

Most people think DART is just about buses and trains. They’re wrong. It’s a $1.6 billion economic engine that determines how fast your Amazon packages arrive and how long you sit in Dallas traffic. Right now, DART is at a crossroads. With 13 member cities, shifting budgets, and a "Transit 2.0" vision, Chairman Randall Bryant is sitting at the most expensive deal table in North Texas. In...

World record mountain endurance athlete Chris Fisher reveals how addiction, loss, and repeated reinvention built the mindset behind one of the most demanding feats in American climbing history. He lost close friends to overdose, had his senior football season stripped away, and found himself at the lowest point of his life before he ever set foot on a mountain. After years of addiction, a recovery...

Rogers Healy built a real estate empire by becoming a Texas household name, but his true breakthrough came when he learned how to hire himself out of his own job. Now, as the operator behind Morrison Seger Venture Capital, Rogers is deploying $2M to $10M checks into high-growth consumer brands using a strategy that prioritizes founder integrity over a polished pitch deck. In this episode of The De...

George Killebrew, Vice President of the United Pickleball Association and former Chief Revenue Officer of the Dallas Mavericks, shares why in sports, it’s better to be hated or loved than ignored—and how that mindset shaped the Mavericks’ approach to building a winning franchise. This episode explores the principles behind creating a team that drives engagement, loyalty, and long-term value, from...

Solar activity is a measurable risk variable across satellites, aviation, precision agriculture, and energy markets. Katherine Monson, CEO and co-founder of Hale SWx, explains how a physics-based solar model improves forecast accuracy beyond legacy statistical methods and enables both short-range operational decisions and long-range capital planning. For spacecraft operators, forecasting informs l...

Wyatt Smith, founder of Upsmith and former Uber executive, outlines the strategic application of agentic AI within the U.S. skilled trades and home services sectors. Modern trade businesses face a 1.5 million-person labor shortage, a gap increasingly bridged by probabilistic AI agents designed to drive 50X increases in operational productivity. Automating administrative tasks at the application la...

Southern Methodist University isn’t trying to become Wall Street—and Dean Todd Milbourn is clear about that. What SMU Cox is doing is building a modern business school designed for a fast-shifting economy where talent, adaptability, and real-world engagement matter more than tradition alone. In this episode, Milbourn breaks down how SMU Cox is operating more like a holding company than a legacy in...

Texas is growing faster than almost anywhere in the U.S.—1,200 new residents every day, three new subdivisions on average, and booming demand for homes, offices, and data centers. Land strategy, phased development, and infrastructure planning drive long-term value, while energy supply and city regulations set critical limits. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT WE COVER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • The...

JJ Barto of Broadwing Capital explains how lower middle market private equity actually works—partnering with founder-owned businesses, navigating first-time institutional capital, and creating value through disciplined execution rather than financial engineering. A grounded look at how durable lower middle market businesses are built, transitioned, and scaled—without relying on leverage-driven sho...

Dan Hunt outlines the business logic behind FC Dallas, continuous stadium reinvestment, and North Texas’ World Cup 2026 strategy. He explains how capital allocation, infrastructure upgrades, and market integrity translate into durable economic impact. WHAT WE COVER The Hunt family’s long-term investment thesis in American soccer Dan Hunt’s role running the business side of FC Dallas vs. on-field d...

Navigating a founder-led exit is more than just a transaction—it’s a pivotal moment for a business and its owners. John Willding breaks down how private equity and strategic buyers differ, why early planning and quality-of-earnings analysis matter, and how thoughtful deal structuring drives long-term value. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT WE COVER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • How founder-operators s...

Buddy Ozanne, founder of Property Advisors Inc., discusses the evolution of wealth management and the critical components of long-term estate preservation. The conversation covers his transition from a transactional insurance model in the 1970s to becoming a pioneer in the fee-only RIA space. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Key Takeaways ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ -The transition from transactional sales...

Tailwater Capital’s Jason Downie and Edward Herring examine today’s U.S. energy crunch driven by AI demand, population growth, and infrastructure constraints. They discuss nuclear’s comeback and how disciplined investors are positioning for long-term value in a market defined by reliability and capital scarcity. WHAT WE COVER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • U.S. energy shortfall and the need for relia...

Tracy “DOC” Curry transformed a career setback into a platform for measurable impact. Through DOC CARES, the Dreams Experience Academy, and global minority ownership ventures, he links music, AI, and mentorship to educational outcomes and sustainable social growth. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN • Lessons from 40+ years of personal and professional growth • Faith, perseverance, and using life’s challenges to r...

The Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) is reshaping America’s capital markets. Nicole Chambers, Global Managing Director and former NASDAQ executive, explains why the U.S. has fallen from 9,000 to 4,400 public companies, how exchange regulation pushed issuers away, and why Texas is becoming a new financial power center. Nicole breaks down the decline of public listings, the shift of financial talent from...

Energy investing, private equity strategy, and the career mindset behind “The Fastest Tortoise.” Ken Hersh breaks down risk, resilience, decision-making, and the leadership principles that shaped modern energy finance. He explains operators vs. assets, probabilistic thinking, market cycles, and why “yellow lights don’t turn green.”Ken served as President & CEO of the George W. Bush Presidentia...

Michael Sarner joined Capital Southwest in 2015 and currently serves as Chief Executive Officer, bringing over 30 years of experience in finance, treasury, and BDC’s. Leveraging his extensive background in financial services, Sarner has built best-in-class teams and innovative solutions to support the company's growth. Under his leadership, his team has raised over $2 billion in debt and equity fi...

Lane Kasselman is the President and Chief Business Officer at Blockchain.com, where he has transformed the startup unicorn into a fast-growing multinational business. Kasselman has spent over two decades consulting on business strategy, public policy, crisis management and communications, running communications and public affairs for Uber, AT&T, The Messina Group and his own firm, Greenbrier....

Troy W. Eckerd, Chairman of Eckerd Enterprises, shares his journey from humble beginnings to building over $1 billion in energy assets. With decades of experience in finance, oil & gas, and private capital, Troy explains how he navigates an industry riddled with obstacles, misrepresentation, and high failure rates to deliver real returns for investors. Season 2 of The Deal Table is brought to...

Brint shares how his firm produces more adjudicated data than anyone else and is changing the tax landscape forever. From leveraging AI and ChatGPT to optimize taxes in real-time, to navigating the ever-changing gray areas of the tax code, Brint dives into how innovation, leadership, and technology intersect in the world of business taxes. We also get a glimpse into Ryan’s unique work culture, rem...

In this episode of The Deal Table, we sat down with Dr. Alex Farahmand. Dr. Alex Farahmand MD, is the co-founder and president of Tidal Medical Technologies, a pioneering medical device company transforming respiratory care through smart technology. Tidal Medicals flagship innovation is InSee which is a connected, user-friendly incentive spirometer designed to boost patient compliance and improve...