This video is not the first video I thought I would be making on this channel, but as you guys know, life has a fun way of throwing curveballs at you. And then you have to adjust and adapt accordingly to get through those. Now, as you all know, I resigned from my position, or some of you all know, I resigned from my position at T-Rex Arms on May 28th, 2025, a little over a week ago. And since then there have been there's been a lot of speculation as to why I had to do that. There were two things that I pointed out in my statement that I had to uh resign over values and taking care of my family or protecting my family. And so obviously lots of people are assuming many things. And then T-Rex Arms posted a statement the following Monday with a lot of vague information. Obviously, people are drawing all kinds of conclusions, but to this day, no one actually knows what happened, or at least most of you all don't know. The purpose for this video is to clear some of that up. My wife's integrity has been called into question. My integrity has been called into question. And a value at T-Rex Arms and a value of me that I've been very staunch on for many years is truth and transparency. And that is not a value we can just say. But we have to live it out. We have to actually stand up for the truth. Say the truth. And that is something that I will be doing with this video. Now, you can probably see that I have this seven pages of paper. And personally, I'm not a huge fan of scripts and outlines, but what I do have here is an outline of the recent events and the company history so that I can be precise in my statements and give you all accurate information. So, starting off, let's talk about the history of the company. So, in September of 2013, I founded T-Rex Arms in Middle Tennessee. I did it with my own money. It was not a company started by my dad who then gave it to me and put hundreds of thousands of dollars into it. I started the company with 2,000 bucks. I was doing all the work myself and over a couple years I was hiring employees into the company while being a 100% owner. My brother David and a friend of his or friend of the family, David Noir, were in the business working. They were manufacturing holsters, shipping, doing quality control, things like that. and my brother came to me and said, "Hey, I would love to become a owner with you, as well as David No, whose um sister had I think they had just gotten married to David Botkin." So, they're related. I guess I'm by proxy semi-related. And he said, "We'd like to be owners." So, up until this point, David was my role model growing up. I had zero reason to mistrust my family. I lived at home. my dad's a pastor, you know, everything's all hunky dory. So, I said, "Cool, write up the agreement. You know, I'll look at it." Signed the agreement and ultimately lost uh majority ownership of the company. I didn't know what 51% meant. I didn't know what majority ownership meant. So, in I believe it was early 2016, I was no longer um the uh 100% owner of T-Rex Arms. Little bit later, uh, David came to me again and said, "Hey, I'd like to bring Isaac on." Um, and just for a little context, I'm the second youngest. David is 10 years older. Isaac is 12 years older. So, there's there's seven of us siblings. There's some in the middle, and then there's them at the top. And I I I asked him a couple questions about that. I was a little a little sure but ultimately I signed the shareholder amendment uh that David brought to me and he structured it so that I gave up the alliance share of the equity at that time to bring Isaac in. So at this point I'm still not in control of the company. I have three other business partners. Uh no additional se capital was being brought in uh by them. We were just growing the company with uh orders that are coming in and we were staying debtree. So, all of that is happening. Um, and in 2020 or 2019, end of 2019, I met my wife. I was driving down to Fort Benning for a competition. I drove through her I've told the story before. I drove through her little Bumble bubble. Uh, she didn't want a long-distance relationship, but uh, God has a sense of humor. Drove through, she swiped on me. I left the match early the next day to go on a date because frankly, that's a lot cooler than shooting guns. and we started our relationship. We started dating. But one thing that was tough for me is my family was not very welcoming to her. Uh my wife or well at the time my girlfriend had quite a bit of a backbone. She's a chemical engineer. She was down in Huntsville and and um she had had some family issues of her own and she started to recognize a few things uh a few problems that I was having. So, she was teaching me about all kinds of human things. Uh, what gaslighting is, what being passive aggressive is, what guilt tripping is. I didn't know what any of these things were. I wasn't taught, in my opinion, to recognize emotion, have healthy boundaries. That was just not something I got growing up. So, my wife and I are going through that with my family and also together. It was a very difficult time. And, um, she taught me how to be a better human being. One of my biggest challenges back then was um my relationships were very transactional. So if a person had something I could use for T-Rex because that's like all I was doing, I was friends with them. And that's not a great way to be friends with people. And uh and I burned some relationships early on and I'm very sorry about those. But I also learned from it and my wife was there to take me along uh that process. But one thing that was very important that I want you all to understand is she was my advocate and she was my only advocate. So when business discussions began h happening at T-Rex and disagreements and whatnot um she was there to advocate for me and our discussions. And in our first year of being married, we would spend about three hours a night after work talking about T-Rex and all kinds of issues and disagreements that I was having. This also caused some strain on the marriage because I wasn't very good at interacting with her about, you know, her feelings and what she's doing. And we did uh marriage counseling for a year. I was twothirds at fault, she was one-third uh was mostly me. And I had to I had to become a better husband. I had to look in the mirror and go, I I need to cry out to God. I need to seek his face and I need to fix my marriage. So, this is 2022 time frame that this is happening. But one of the first instances that occurred in the business that showed some inequality between the owner group, the three men and and myself and my wife was right before we got married. I was getting a lot of pressure to sign a prenup. And the reasoning was good. Um, you're going to marry this girl and if you get a divorce, we may have to share equity now with this woman that we didn't originally sign up to run the business with. Very reasonable. So Cara and I talked about it and she said, "Yeah, I'm willing to sign a prenup, but they do they have postnups?" And I said, "No, I don't think they do." She had explained to me what those were. So she said, 'Well, if they want you to do this so that they're protected from you, you should be able to have the same protections from them and their wives if they have a divorce. I thought, pretty reasonable. So went to speak with my two brothers who were married. David O wasn't married yet. And um the conversation did not go well. It wasn't until many months later that they did finally get postnups and they did apologize to me for the um inconsistency of what was going on. Um but there were no apologies ever given to my wife even after we had some third party mediation. So that was the first thing that happened where I started to recognize that there were some differences of opinion. Another thing that came up was my wife was interested in working at T-Rex. She's a chemical engineer. we have a manufacturing process and she figured there's probably some process things on the production line that I can assist with. I'll do it for free because now, you know, I'm married to an owner. There's, you know, why not build the equity? So, she submitted a uh a resume to the corporation to T-Rex Arms. I recused myself from the discussion about um you know, my wife getting hired. Uh but nobody ever responded. The HR director didn't respond. the owners didn't respond and that was very hard for us because one of the other owner's wives was currently employed at T-Rex Arms. So this was the second instance that occurred that was hard for us and over the next few years we had disagreements about the future of the business. The business exploded in 2020. We doubled in size from 30 employees to 70. Things were popping off. Obviously 2020 was a wild time, but as the company got larger, so did the problems. So did the policy that's needed to happen. And that's when a lot of disagreements were occurring between me and the owner group. Sometimes me and one owner, sometimes a couple of them. And these weren't like your normal corporate disagreements that you have throughout a regular work week. These were larger board shareholder issues and just differing visions for the company. So in Q1 of 20 25 to fast forward a little bit you know during all this time we had a board meeting in uh this this January and I came into the room and just told the guys hey I think it's time for a separation for the cl the good of the staff for the clarity of the mission for either you three to have the company or me have the company and I'll be back in 3 weeks with an LOI a letter of intent to purchase your equity and you all should consider writing one uh of your own to buy me out. So, uh sure enough, later that month, I issued my letter of intent to purchase with a, you know, purchase price, all the details, and it was turned down, which is their right of being shareholders. They could say, "No, we don't want to sell. We're not interested." Um, I requested an offer from them and uh and I and I and I got one, but I was still very committed to buying the company. I was still very committed to the idea and mission of T-Rex Arms and I had lots of concerns about the company and the direction it was going and I wanted to I wanted to take control and there was I got to tell this story this is just it was pretty brutal. Um and God's hand is through all of this. I mean there's so many instances of this but I'm on the phone with my wife and I'm driving to um Jonathan's Grill in Spring Hill. Uh we get food there pretty often and I'm on the phone with her at the bar waiting for the takeout order to show up and we had just made one offer. It was turned down and I'm trying to figure out what now what do we do? And all of a sudden a guy comes over and says, "Hey, I paid for your order. Thank you for what you do." And I was like, "Whoa, whoa." And he kind of walked out and and then I kind of realized that these three dudes next to me, there's three or four knew me as well. and they made some comments to him and so I was like, "Hey, Cara, let me let me call you back. I think these guys know who I am. Let me let me talk to them." So I hung up and uh and spoke with these guys and they said the same thing. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for the values of the company. We really appreciate T-Rex and and what it's done for us. So I get the food. to walk out immediately call her once I get into my truck and I was like we got to buy we've got to buy the company for these guys so we can keep doing the thing that they appreciate. So it was after that call we jumped the offer substantially and uh sent them a new one and that was also declined. So that was how the buyout process was going. But during this time, something else happened. In March, my wife was sent three unsolicited pornographic images by an employee. This employee is also the son of an executive. So, I reported it to the company. The owners, the board, and the executive team, you know, knew about it and what's going on. And in our opinion, me being my wife, the company did not appropriate appropriately respond to the situation, especially considering our employee handbook explicitly states that we have a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment. And it was only after my resignation and employees finding out about this incident that the team member was finally let go in June. So, as you can probably guess, there's a I've got a lot of emotion running through my mind. I have lots of just stuff going on. There's a buyout. This thing just happened to my wife, you know. Um there were a lot of other things happening at work. And I said, "We we need to go." I think Cara actually said, "We need to talk to one of our pastors." So, I was like, "That's a great idea." So, we went to coffee with one of the pastors at our church. And again, providentially, this pastor was not just a not just a man of God. He's not just a um a pastor, an elder, but he also is a serial entrepreneur. He told me he had started twice over um having businesses kind of like blow up or whatever. And he'd been an executive in a very large company you all would know about. And so, as he was explaining his story, I was like, "Oh, shoot. This is amazing. like I'm getting like real time like intel from this guy and he knows exactly what I'm talking about. He had questions about the shareholder agreement, things like that. But once I explained the story about the sexual harassment issue, some other disagreements that were occurring, he he just looked at me and said, "You need to quit. Then you need to move on and start over." And that's ob that was very hard for me to hear just because I was so committed to buying the company. I had an extensive plan for what that would look like afterwards. And uh and I kind of told him, well, I have a problem with that because it means leaving employees behind. And he said, "Yes, that is true. However, you resigning will bring clarity to the entire staff for them to know who they work for." And that was something staff were confused about ever since really they started being employed. I had an opinion about how things should be done. And another owner has an opinion as well. And so there were employees and I heard about it throughout the years of am I working for Lucas or am I working for David, Isaac or David. So his point was correct. It will bring clarity to everyone if you're no longer in the company and it's just their company. The other thing that was becoming hard for me is um over the last couple years, it wasn't just after the incident in March, it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to publicly represent T-Rex Arms. I did a interview with Tucker Carlson that was extremely difficult. He asked me a lot of questions about my family. I did my best to say a lot of nice things and respectful things about my family, but as soon as I was off the air and we were in the suburban getting driven back to our hotel, I just I didn't break down crying, but I was just I was busted up. I was busted the rest of the day. We had given my family five years to reconcile some of these issues, and it didn't happen. And some of the core values of T-Rex Arms, in our opinion, were not being lived out. They were spoken. I was speaking them, but they weren't happening. And there's things like I I remember writing to one company in particular and letting them know a large firearms manufacturer that we would be unable to work with their company based on how they objectified women. And these were stances I was taking publicly to protect women. And then we have this incident in March that is very different. So, something had to break. This isn't working. Uh, my principles were being continuously challenged at T-Rex while T-Rex was being positioned as a strong Christian company. And my wife, the only family I had at this point, was being continuously disrespected, in our opinion, by the owners and leadership of T-Rex. So on May 28th, 2025, I resigned. And the resignation isn't just me being gone, but it the owners in honoring the shareholder agreement will be purchasing out my equity. So I will no longer have any ties to the company. I can't I can't state clearly enough how hard this time has been for me and my wife. We haven't had a honeymoon, for example. We decided not to have children during this very high tension, high stress time. And maybe that wasn't a biblical um the right position to take, but we're we're willing to face God on that. But we also are looking forward to discussing children now, now that we're out, now that we can talk about some things. And we want this to be over. We want to move on with our life. I've got companies I want to start. We've got a lot of things that we want to do. Starting a family is definitely one of them. But what I will say, and I don't want to dredge up this whole story, like I want to get this out there to you guys, and then I really do want to move on. There's a few points I would like to sprinkle in here and there for education of what I've learned the last 11 years that I think would be great for either founders or people that are starting businesses or they're thinking about partnerships. I definitely have some experience with that that I would love to share with people, but I don't want to dredge up all this stuff over and over. But if my integrity or my wife's integrity is challenged further by the T-Rex Arms owners, executives or staff, I will do whatever is necessary to speak the truth and protect my family. Cara and I have we've had a lot of discussions about the wrongs that we believe have been done to us. And what I can tell you right now is we have forgiven all of the parties involved. It would be difficult for us to see some of them right now, but we have forgiven them. That's the right thing to do. It's the Christian thing to do. And that's an important piece of moving on as well. And we both hope for reconciliation for both of our families. But I really hope for reconciliation with my brothers in the future. I don't think it can happen right now and I think some time will help. But that is something that I want. I don't know exactly what it will look like. I don't know when it will happen. I don't know if they I hope they're open to it. But Cara and I both want to be reconciled with our families. That is something we strongly desire. Now, I want to take a minute to talk about T-Rex because I'm proud of what we were able to accomplish. I'm proud of the videos that I filmed. I'm proud of the projects, the products that we launched. I'm proud of the staff who are there. And I'm sad. It's really probably the a lot of people think like, oh, you'll miss the range because I can't go to the range anymore. You'll miss the armory because the armory is not mine. But what I'm going to miss the most about being at T-Rex was working with the people. It's not the stuff, not the range, not the not the buildings, not any of that. I'm going to miss the people. I'm going to miss working with the staff. I obviously have my problems with the executive team and with the owners, but I'm going to miss the staff. I really am. And that's that's tough. That's really tough. Um, but I also want to let you all know that I'm not burning all my T-Rex shirts. I'm not burning my hats. I'm not still got a side car. I'm not torching all my holsters and off off uh gassing a bunch of mustard gas, you know. Um but I will say I'm going to have a hard time buying from T-Rex moving forward simply because of the values of the owners. I'm going to have a very difficult time. Um at this point I'm a customer just like you all. If I go to T-Rex to buy a product, just like any company, I want to be sure of the values and not and and not that the values are just spoken or on a wall in, you know, the the conference room, but the values have to be lived out. The values have to be there has to be track record of those values. And if T-Rex is able to do that, then I will continue being a customer or I should say I will begin being a customer of T-Rex Arms. I don't think I've ever actually bought from T-Rex before. Got one more page. So, something I've thought a lot about and I've had I've had a lot of people ask if I have regrets. Do I have regrets? you know, and um I wasn't always this way, but in recent time, I have come to the conclusion that if I had the chance to do it all over again, work with my family, have the things go down the way they did, I would do it again. As hard as that sounds, as hard as these five years have been, I would do it again because I have learned so much about myself. I've learned so much about people. I've grown closer in my relationship to God in trusting God. And I've grown way closer to my wife. So, I would do it again as hard as it is. And I'm sure or hopeful that in a few years I might even get to a point where I thank people for what they did because of how it allowed me to grow. And I know that may sound kind of hard for some of you all to hear, but um that really is how you improve as a human being and how you grow is very hard things that happen and you persevering and overcoming them. There there's also a lot more to this story I'm not sharing because I don't think it's absolutely necessary. These it's mainly just the highlights at this point. Um, and some of you all may think that I'm overreacting to these multiple incidents you've now heard about and my decision to leave the company I founded. But what I'll tell you is I'm fully confident in my decision to stand on principle and side with my wife and protect my family even when it means walking from the company I started. And I would make this decision again. I would make this decision a hundred times if I were faced with this exact scenario over and over and over again. I'm extremely confident of the decision. And the example that I have that I've thought a lot about is Christ laid down his life for the church. We husbands should be willing and ready and able to lay down our lives for our wives. And um that is a a very strong example I've had in my mind this whole time. And um if I didn't make this decision, I would feel extremely dirty and I would just feel really bad. So what I want to say is I want to thank you guys for the over overwhelming support that you've shown me and Cara the last week. I've had hundreds thousands of direct messages texts. I got I've been getting texts from friends from like 15 years ago who know about this. I haven't talked to them in over a decade. I've had f I've had texts from industry guys that I used to hang out with, SF dudes, mill guys that I haven't talked to in eight years, but they see what's happened. They don't know the full story. They don't know the truth of what's going on, but they can tell that something bad happened or something hard really happened. And I really I I can't thank you guys enough. how helpful that's been because even this week has been very hard for me and my wife and the transition for me going from being in my company working with the staff to now not having a job. It's been it's been tough. And I also want to thank you guys for your support of T-Rex while I was there. You trusted the mission. You trusted the values. You trusted me. And I hope I can build that trust with you all at the next few companies that I'll be starting. And with that said, I want to move on from all this. I want to The past is the past. I want to move on because the future is exciting. I've already got things I want to do. I've already got things lined up. I've already got products, brands, and what I would like to do is share that with you. Next week, if I'm able to move on from this, I would like to begin sharing with you all the next journey. And what's really fun about just this whole thing in general is I get to show you guys the beginning. I didn't get I wasn't able to do that with T-Rex, but now I want to walk you guys through the start of these companies, what it takes, the reasons, the values for these two companies that I'm starting so that you guys can be inspired, educated, and follow along. With all that said, I appreciate you all very much and your support and I look forward to seeing you all soon.