Episode 15 – Resilience in Action: Leadership, Advocacy, and Healing with Travis Bornstein

Todd Bertsch: 0:06

Welcome back to the BOLT Podcast. I’m Todd Bertsch, your guide on this exciting journey of personal growth and leadership, where my guests and I will share personal stories from our transformational journeys of how small changes can lead to massive results. You’ll discover tips on overcoming obstacles, setting and achieving goals, building lasting habits, living a happy, healthy and positive life, and so much more. If you’re ready to cultivate a growth mindset and become the best version of yourself, then let’s ignite your growth today. Joining us today is Travis Bornstein, a dedicated leader and advocate with over 28 years of experience as president of Teamsters, local Number 24 in Akron, ohio. Known for his integrity and fairness, Travis is also a John Maxwell certified speaker, teacher and coach specializing in leadership development.

Todd Bertsch: 1:00

As the founder of his nonprofit, hope United. Inspired by the loss of his son Tyler, travis has become a powerful voice in the fight against the opioid epidemic. His advocacy has been pivotal, influencing policy changes like Ohio’s first Good Samaritan, 9-1-1 law and holding Big Pharma accountable. His work has been featured in Forbes and Bloomberg. Andy’s addressed members of Congress on addiction reform. Travis is a proud US Marine Corps veteran and family man, married over 25 years with two daughters. Listeners, get ready for an inspiring conversation filled with resilience, leadership and hope. Travis, welcome to the Bull Podcast my friend.

Travis Bornstein: 1:43

Thank you, man, appreciate it very much. It’s an honor be here on your Podcast, my friend. Thank you, man, appreciate it very much. It’s an honor to be here and you’re doing great things, man. Thank you, it’s awesome. I’ve been watching some of the things you have going on and you’re doing good bud. Thank you, proud of you, man.

Todd Bertsch: 1:55

It’s all about these stories of resilience, personal growth and leadership. So when LinkedIn, I saw that you liked a few posts and I reached back. I’m like Travis, I know that guy and so just to share the story, how you and I met, I think it was probably about 10 years ago yeah, my company Evolve Marketing, we were doing a redesign of a website for the Opiate Task Force for Summit County and so we were collaborating with the ADM board and I believe they brought you in, yeah, to share your story.

Todd Bertsch: 2:27

You were kind of the man known to speak to us about opiates and the epidemic and man, it’s so funny because I remember you walking in that door I’m like who’s this guy?

Travis Bornstein: 2:36

Like I mean you have this commanding presence.

Todd Bertsch: 2:39

You and I talked about it a little bit, not in a bad way, it’s just you’re a big guy, you’re bulky and you know it’s like yeah.

Travis Bornstein: 2:46

So you know I’m an intense dude, naturally, and you know sometimes that’s good, Sometimes that’s bad. You know what I mean.

Todd Bertsch: 2:52

You know what I mean. It’s for that conversation. I think it’s good and you well. So all that to say, man, you left a huge impression on me and I think I shared this at breakfast. When we had breakfast, I mean, I went home. I learned so much about the epidemic. I went home, emptied out our medicine cabinet, which had tons of opiates. I’ve had 10 kidney stones over the past 10 years, every year, and that’s what they give me. I don’t know if you’ve had one, if you’ve heard about it, but there’s only one. There’s nothing you can do. Yep, I don’t know if you’ve had one, if you’ve heard about it, but there’s only one, there’s nothing you can do yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 3:27

How can you deal with the pain? Yeah, and from that day, I’ve never taken a single opiate.

Travis Bornstein: 3:33

Yeah, it’s awesome.

Todd Bertsch: 3:34

I have a very addictive personality, so I knew that and hearing that from you, and I have a 25-year-old son who is an athlete and old son who was an athlete and that story and we’ll get into it. So, yeah, you had a huge, just that one conversation. You had a huge impact on me. So when I saw you, I’m like, oh man, I’d love to just reconnect and so I’m grateful that you know we were able to break some bread together and have a conversation and learn more about the journey you know, 10 years, so a lot has happened and we’re going to we’re going to talk about that today.

Travis Bornstein: 4:01

Awesome man. Yeah, thank you.

Todd Bertsch: 4:03

I guess yeah, if you want to start off, tell us a little bit about Hope United and that journey and how you got started, you and your wife.

Travis Bornstein: 4:12

So you know, I think it’s important to kind of start, you know, with Tyler.

Todd Bertsch: 4:17

Yeah, you know kind of what happened, and you know I was.

Travis Bornstein: 4:20

You know. So, shelly and I have been together our whole life. We started dating and I think I was in eighth grade, man, oh, high school, even further, yeah. So, and then, like you said, we’ve been married 35 years. You know what I mean. And Tyler was our first child, our only son. And to just tell you a little bit about Tyler, you know he was an honor roll student, all league, all county golfer. He got a golf and academic scholarship at Walsh University. Tyler checked all the check marks that you’re looking for for kids and he did a bodybuilding show in 2013. He was runner up junior Mr Ohio.

Travis Bornstein: 4:58

So how does a kid like that get addicted to heroin? You know what I mean. I kind of always say like, listen, we played by the rules. My wife and I had good jobs. You know we’re, we’re middle-class family. Our family was in church, right, this ain’t supposed to happen to us, right, right, right. So ultimately, you know, what happened with Tyler is he had broke his right arm four times and he had two surgeries on his right elbow. Uh, the first surgery was at age 11. Second surgery was at age 18. And ultimately, he became addicted to the opiate prescription pain pills. I didn’t even know what an opiate was right?

Todd Bertsch: 5:32

Yeah, I don’t think any of us did really you know so the doctor’s giving it to you.

Travis Bornstein: 5:35

You’re thinking, hey, man, they know what’s best. And you know, to give an opiate to an 11 year old, you know, now to me, sounds crazy. At the time I didn’t. I didn’t know, it wasn’t immediate effects. But at 18, a little different time now, right, and so he got addicted to the pain pills which led to heroin. Four out of five heroin users first began with the use of opiate prescription pain pills. That’s crazy, most of the time given to him from a doctor sports accident, car accident, work-related accident and it was on man.

Travis Bornstein: 6:05

And before we really realized how far we were into it, we were deep into it. And so, you know, for the next six years of our life it looked like relapse, recovery, relapse, recovery. We learned a lot of hard lessons. Man, I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand addiction as a disease. I was the typical parent that you know said all like, what are you doing? We didn’t raise you like this. You know what I mean, which has nothing to do with nothing. I know that now. I didn’t know that. Then, right, you know what I mean. And so I made a lot of mistakes. Now, the mistakes I didn’t make, I never stopped loving my son and I never stopped trying to get him help. You know what I mean, so you know.

Travis Bornstein: 6:46

To kind of cut to the chase, ultimately what happened is Tyler was in the process of overdosing and the person he was with, instead of calling 911, dumped him in a field and left him there to die. The next day, the Summit County Sheriff shows up at our house and proceeds to tell my wife and 17-year-old daughter that a resident found a dead body in a vacant lot, and it’s our 23-year-old son. So what do you do, you know, when all your hopes and dreams are left in the field to die. And that’s how we got into the space and that’s our journey. And it’s still, you know, hard to tell the story, man. It’s 10 years. You know it’s still. You know it’s still. You know, hard to tell the story, man. It’s 10 years. You know it’s still. It’s still. You know it’s still emotional, still hard.

Todd Bertsch: 7:29

And that was fentanyl. Yeah, so, yeah, so another epidemic?

Travis Bornstein: 7:32

Yeah for sure. And so at the time again, this was 2014 at the time, he was one of the first young men’s to die of a fentanyl overdose. Today, 70% of all overdoses are fentanyl related 70%, 70%. Oh my gosh, you know what I mean. So you know through that. Ultimately, you know our family formed a nonprofit in 2016 called Hope United.

Travis Bornstein: 7:54

You know it’s basically three pillars education, support and recovery. You know we try to get out, we share our story, we speak in schools, we speak with employers, speak at unions, speak at churches, community settings, and just try to share our story and talk about you know how did we get to the worst drug epidemic in the history of our country? You know what I mean, because a lot of people don’t understand it. You know what I mean. And so we have a tendency to go those people. We have a tendency to say, oh, they weren’t raised in a good home. We have a tendency to say what’s an inner city problem? Which? All those are false. All those are false. You know what I mean.

Travis Bornstein: 8:31

And so that’s kind of our educational piece, our support piece is, you know, obviously we have tons of recovery type meetings, we have family support, we have grief, support for families that’s lost a loved one or a child due to the disease of addiction. And then our big project is the recovery piece, which is we built the first RCO in Summit County. It’s called Tyler’s Redemption Place and it’s a 7,500 square foot log cabin right in Springfield Township. Man, and it’s been awesome, man, it’s just been unbelievable.

Todd Bertsch: 9:05

The space is cool and I want to come out and see it and I would recommend anybody. If you just see the one photo and the story I mean the story of that building alone, right?

Travis Bornstein: 9:18

That took? I mean, it was seven years before you could even build you know, won the funds COVID materials.

Todd Bertsch: 9:25

And then you pivoted going from a commercial building to this crazy beautiful log cabin. Was that Amish built?

Travis Bornstein: 9:34

Yeah, I knew it was inspired, yeah, yeah. So it’s been a crazy journey, you know what I mean, and very difficult, you know there’s. You know the grieving process is very unique. You know what I mean. I think everybody and all the listeners will agree. Like the worst thing that can happen to you is lose a child right, for any reason, any reason. There’s no good reason. You know what I mean.

Travis Bornstein: 9:59

And the problem is with an overdose, the stigma that’s associated with it. Like all of a sudden you’re a bad parent, you didn’t raise your kids right. You know if you’d have just had your kids in church, you know what I mean. Those kinds of things that we do as a society. Which I did all that and I’m not trying to say I’m a saint, by no means because I’m not but I checked all those marks and trying to, you know, overcome that. Because the stigma was tough, man, you know what I mean. It was tough and I think that’s kind of what drove me into the space too is we just didn’t understand it. We had a lot better understanding of addiction and substance use and alcoholism. Now Still a lot of work to do. You know what I mean and we’ll talk through some of that stuff. But it’s been a journey, man. It’s been a journey. You know, god’s been good man, god’s been good. And uh, you know it’s sometimes hard for me to say out loud, you know, because uh, it’s, it’s sucked along the way too. Yeah, absolutely.

Todd Bertsch: 11:00

And so faith played a big. You know, I’m thinking I’m putting myself in your shoes. Like I said, I have a 24, 25 year old son and a daughter and I’m thinking, yeah, I don’t know how I could rebound from that. Like I mean, the testament of resilience, you and your whole family, your wife and your two daughters. How did you guys? I know it was rough, was there any? Was it the faith that they? You know there was a rock? I know it was rough. Was there any? Was it the faith that was the rock?

Travis Bornstein: 11:24

I think so. I think you know, and listen, man. I know we’re in a tricky situation in today’s society. You know we don’t do a good job of you know, working out our faith and I think sometimes as Christians, we’re just not great examples sometimes, man, and we hurt the kingdom sometimes more than we help the kingdom. You know what I mean, me first. I screw a lot of things up, man. So but for sure for us is, you know, my wife and I were equally yoked. We had been in church our whole lives. I was saved and baptized as a young man and I never stopped believing, even in the midst of that.

Travis Bornstein: 12:00

You know it was hard. I mean, I think for the first time ever in my life I really pushed back and said God, like this is how my story ends. You know it was hard. I mean, I think for the first time ever in my life I really pushed back and said God, like this is how my story ends. You know, I’ve tried to do the right thing, I’ve played by the rules, I’ve tried to serve you and my kids get stumped in a field. This is how this ends. You know what I mean and I think in all of that, you know when we can slow down and we can take deep breath. You know God’s ways aren’t our ways Right, and that’s what we had to do. We had to just slow down, we had to take a deep breath. My oldest daughter was a sophomore in college at Walsh. My youngest daughter was a senior in high school and Tyler was the third young man to die of a heroin overdose in Hartville Right Within a year.

Todd Bertsch: 12:44

A small small little town, yeah.

Travis Bornstein: 12:46

And so that kind of triggered the whole community, man, and so my daughter and the two other girls that lost their older brothers too did a presentation at the high school, kind of talking about what’s going on, you know, and they each shared their stories and at the time this was a couple months right after Tyler passed, and at the time I’m silent on the issue, man, I’m still caught in shame, I’m still caught in failure, I’m still caught in embarrassment and I’m watching my 17-year-old daughter share our story and have more guts and courage than her dad man, and I was super proud of her, but I was ashamed of myself because my pride got in the way of us at that point sharing our story. You know what I mean. And, uh, so, when Tyler was an active addiction, nobody knew. I could barely talk about it with my family, you know what I mean. None of my friends knew, like none of my friends had no idea what was going on, and they seen it on the news and in the paper, just like everybody else, like Trav.

Travis Bornstein: 13:51

What happened, man? And that was all me, caught up in the stigma, right Me, caught up in my again my own pride, you know. And at that point. That’s when I knew that, listen, man, there’s a story here and I got to start sharing it and I got to get over myself, because this story is happening all across our community, it’s happened all across our country and I need to be a voice, man, I need to be a voice and I think that’s kind of what drove me into it, man, you know what I mean. And so you know, through that, these girls were talking and at their school, and then that kind of took off and my daughter spent her whole senior year traveling to high schools all across Stark County, summit County and Portage County, and so through that, we formed a Facebook page, started to talk about these girls and then, through that, that’s what drove us to form the nonprofit, and so she was kind of the driving force behind all of that.

Todd Bertsch: 14:45

Wow, yeah, that’s crazy. And was your wife on board?

Travis Bornstein: 14:50

Oh yeah, beginning, or oh yeah, oh yeah. So the great thing about this thing is that Shelly and I have been equally yoked and the way I the reason why I say it that way. It’s not me pushing this, it’s not her pushing this. We do it together and we’ve done it together the whole time. The divorce rate goes like off the chart when you lose a child because you don’t heal, you don’t grieve at the same time, and then one person doesn’t heal as fast as the other and all those kinds of things, and it’s so easy to get into the blame game and point fingers and all that. And I’m so thankful that my wife never did that to me.

Todd Bertsch: 15:24

You know what I mean.

Travis Bornstein: 15:25

So we didn’t play the blame game, man. We just, uh, we just sat down and we talked about it and we said, hey, god is God, we’re not. We got to walk into this. I don’t like it. But how can we try to bring improvement? How can we bring change? How can we, how can we get the conversation going? And so that’s we just decided to do that. Man, we’re going to take the worst thing that could happen to us as parents and you know, see how we can promote change.

Todd Bertsch: 15:51

So that’s where it was born, and it was not easy. You had never started a nonprofit 501c3. And I know a lot of people that have gone through that process and it’s not easy. It’s not easy. Nothing’s easy man, Nothing’s nothing worthwhile. You got to do the work.

Travis Bornstein: 16:09

You know the good, the good thing for me personally is, you know, I had a lot of experience of running an executive board, of dealing with board members, getting board members establishing bylaws. So I did have a little, probably more experience than most. I can tell you right now some of the board members I have then I don’t have now. People come and go, right, yeah, and so sometimes people are there for a season. Sometimes people aren’t there to put the work in and get it done. You know what I mean. So, but yeah, it was difficult, man, it was difficult, yeah, so to give you a little bit more, so the other thing that really drove this thing, so we, neither one of us were real comfortable going to the cemetery, like it. Just, you know, man, it just didn’t feel good. Man, I can tell you I’ve probably been there less than 10 times, man, less than 10 times in 10 years, probably less than, probably, honestly, probably five or six times. I’d find no peace there. All I find is my brokenness there, you know what I mean, and it’s just not comfortable.

Travis Bornstein: 17:15

And my wife was kind of the same way and she started going over to this field where they found Tyler, and she started going over there and she started walking on the property and then she started taking a couple of her friends and mentors with her and they would go over there and they started praying and my wife’s just started feeling a desire for change and a desire to do something and kind of teasing a little bit. But she’d come home and she’s like hey, man, we’re going to buy this property, man. She’s like we’re going to buy this property. I was like all right, shelly, just slow down. You know what I mean. And then she just like persistent doing it, man. And finally she comes home and she goes listen, I’m not clowning. She’s like go get a loan and we’re going to buy this property, man. And I’m like, you know, she’s like God’s, god’s told me, man. And I’m like, well, good, uh, if God’s told, then he’ll provide a way and I don’t have to get a loan.

Todd Bertsch: 18:05

Right, right, right Right.

Travis Bornstein: 18:07

And that’ll lead us into the next part.

Todd Bertsch: 18:08

That’s a great segue. Yeah, so, let’s, let’s talk about that. So, so you’re, like we said in the intro, president of Teamsters, local number 24 in Akron, ohio, for 28. Yeah, so, so I’ve been a full-time officer.

Travis Bornstein: 18:25

Right now I’m working in my 30th year Right and how many? Terms Seven. I’ve been elected 10 times. I’m on my ninth term as the president of the local government, which is unprecedented.

Todd Bertsch: 18:35

Yeah For those that aren’t familiar. I mean, I’m not trying to blow smoke or brag but it’s a big deal. I mean it’s a testament to if we’re talking about leadership. You know, somebody doesn’t at a young age.

Travis Bornstein: 18:48

Yeah, I was 20. I was so I, you know. After high school I went into Marine Corps. I spent four years in the Marine Corps and then I came back. I started working at Roadway Express as a dock worker and I actively started getting involved with the union. I became the shop steward. I think I was 22 years old, a shop steward and then I just kept, you know, being actively involved. And then at 29, I ran, uh, for a full-time, full-time position, business agent position. I got elected. And then at 32, I ran for president, principal officer and, uh, youngest president history of the local, yeah, and then I’ve got elected a couple more times afterwards, yeah, and going for one more, yeah, I need one more for sure, yeah, so, yeah, so, you know, within the teamsters and within local, as this was going on in my life, I also recognized it was going on in a member’s life.

Travis Bornstein: 19:39

I also seen, uh, it was very common for our members to get hurt right On the job, working on the doc, you know, working, working, working. You know, in a warehouse and those kinds of things, they get a shoulder injury, go to the doctor. Doctor gives him opiate right, come back. You know it’s. It’s, you know, 10 degrees out, snowing. I don’t feel great today, but I take this pain pill. I’m going to feel a little better, and I got to provide for my family. I got to go to work, and that’s how innocently easy addiction happens, man. And so I started seeing it. I started seeing it in my own local man. I’m like man. This ain’t just me, man. This is affecting our members too, so I wrote a letter to the general president.

Travis Bornstein: 20:18

So every five years, the Teamsters has our national convention. This was in 2016. And so I wrote a letter to our general president and I kind of shared our story and I kind of said something like you know, as union leaders, we’re community leaders and there’s nothing impacting our community than the opiate epidemic. And the general president called me back and he didn’t write. You know, I wrote him a letter. He picked up the phone and called me and he said Travis, I hear your story, man, and I’m going to give you a chance to speak at our convention. He goes I want you to share your story, man.

Todd Bertsch: 20:47

So I did that and that’s a big deal, I mean let’s set that up.

Travis Bornstein: 20:50

Yeah, it’s a huge deal.

Todd Bertsch: 20:51

We’re talking five. How many thousand?

Travis Bornstein: 20:54

Yeah, there’s probably 5,000 people in the room. I mean we got so the team’s searching. We got a million four members all across the United States, canada and Puerto Rico, 400 local unions all across the country, like mine. You know what I mean. So we come together every five years to do the business of the union. You know what I mean. There’s lots of. We set goals, we set strategies. You know what I mean. And we got business to get through and that’s the purpose of that convention. But you know, the great thing about the Teamsters Union is we’re actively involved in our communities, man, and we try to make a difference.

Todd Bertsch: 21:23

We try to be I don’t think a lot of people know that that was something new that I learned, so I appreciate learning that yeah.

Travis Bornstein: 21:28

I mean, you know the Teamsters, man. They’re a very generous organization, man, and we’ll talk about that here in a minute. We’re active in our community, we care about our community, man. You know what I mean? Obviously, this is where we live, this is where we’re raising our kids, man. So, like I said, I wrote the letter, the general president called me back and the reason why you said that’s a pretty big deal and and and I’ll agree with that, because I’ve wrote letters before and never got phone calls back.

Todd Bertsch: 21:55

You know what I’m saying?

Travis Bornstein: 21:56

Yeah Like, hey, I wrote a letter on this issue and it’s like, okay, that’s not that, but not not on this topic.

Todd Bertsch: 22:02

Yeah, so this was, this was different. Yeah, this was different.

Travis Bornstein: 22:05

And so he calls me back and says hey man, you know I’m going to, I’m going to, I want you to speak at the convention. And you know, the thing about that too was a lot of times they make you prepare a speech, give it to them in advance. They proofread it, they send it back. Change this, change that. They didn’t make me do none of that. He didn’t say you got five minutes. He didn’t say you got 10 minutes. He said you get up there and you share your story, man.

Travis Bornstein: 22:27

You know what I mean. And so at that point it was like, man, I’m just going to share my story, I’m just going to be honest, I’m going to be transparent, and I was going to lay it out there, man, and I did. It was 10, 15 minutes speech. It was crazy, you know, after I was done, kind of shared our story, kind of like I shared with you and a little more details, and after I was done, man, teamsters from all across the country started coming up to the mic and said, started making donations, pledges for donations, to support our nonprofit. You know, the first donation was $5,000. Second donation was $10,000. Third donation was $50,000. This went on for over an hour and when it was done, we we raised over a million dollars. Man, you know, in like an hour.

Todd Bertsch: 23:14

I mean that’s unheard of. Yeah, that’s just crazy. The power of that community.

Travis Bornstein: 23:23

Yeah, the respect they have for you and your family, yeah, wow. And the other thing that it did and I think this was probably the most humbling part for me, because, honestly, I was pretty embarrassed man, like again. Man, I struggled with failure. Man, I struggled with like man, man, I wasn’t a father, I should have been to my kid, man, right, you know, and that still beats me up a little bit, you know. But what was so awesome about it is as these guys were coming up and making pledges and they’re like hey, travis, man, this happened to my nephew, you know. Hey, my brother’s struggling too. My dad, we had a, we had a cat, we had a cat come to the mic and he goes. I’ve been in recovery for 25 years but I’ve been afraid to tell anybody. Man, you know what I mean and the stigma in that room. It was just so awesome because it was.

Todd Bertsch: 24:05

It was just awesome, man. I can’t tell you. You opened it up Like they. You know there’s a lot more to that story, right, yeah, and I think.

Travis Bornstein: 24:13

I think the the the thing about it was yeah, did I give a passionate speech? Yeah, okay, Whatever. But the reason why it went the way it did is because what I was saying, a lot of those folks were experiencing the exact same thing. They were just in Minneapolis, or they were in Indiana or they were in California, but the same thing was going on in their town. It was going on in our town, right? You know what I mean? The shame, yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 24:38

The stigma. You know what I mean Wanting to share their story.

Travis Bornstein: 24:42

So it was so awesome, man, it was so humbling. I was so awesome man, it was so humbling. I was so thankful that my wife and my oldest daughter was with me so they could see it and feel it. And they were in the room when I made the speech and they felt it, man, and it was just a great experience for my kids to be able to see.

Todd Bertsch: 25:00

Oh yeah, and we’re going to link to it in the show notes and I recommend everybody listen to it. I watched it last night. I had goosebumps. I mean it was one of the most powerful speeches I’ve listened to in a long time, and so I’m not surprised that it had the impact that it did yeah.

Travis Bornstein: 25:18

It’s very humbling man. The thing I would share there is like our stories matter, right, you know what I mean. Our life journey matters. I don’t believe that god lets us go through things to torture us, right. I believe god lets us go through things to mold us, to change us, to shape us right. There’s got to be a reason, right, right and um. You know, that’s my faith, and I mean, and everybody’s got their own. It’s just, that’s my faith.

Todd Bertsch: 25:43

You know what I mean, and so so, Travis, let’s talk a little bit about this. You going up against Big Pharma that’s crazy, and you know, when I met you and we talked, I immediately went and rented the book or bought the book Dreamland, yeah, and we’ll link to that in the show notes too, and that opened my eyes. That book was incredibly sad.

Travis Bornstein: 26:06

Yeah, you know, a lot of it’s really started here in our in our town, in ohio and just crazy.

Todd Bertsch: 26:13

I highly recommend if you’re not familiar.

Travis Bornstein: 26:14

And yeah, now, now there’s docu-series on the epidemic on netflix and I don’t know if you’ve watched some of those and, uh, I lived it, man. Yeah, yeah, you that book I mean.

Todd Bertsch: 26:26

But they’re, you know yeah. So that was crazy. But tell us a little bit about just the journey of you going up against them and you’re meeting with members of Congress, you’re getting things passed and really, and where we’re at today.

Travis Bornstein: 26:40

Yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 26:40

You know where there’s been some money. There’s been some lawsuits.

Travis Bornstein: 26:43

Yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 26:44

How do you feel about where things are at and where we’re going?

Travis Bornstein: 26:48

Yeah, so you know, on the big pharma thing, you know so, as I kind of brought this to the attention, you know, to the general membership at the Teamster convention, based on the response at that convention, it triggered our general president and our general executive board to go wait a minute, we got a problem. And so through that, through my story, the Teamsters Union put coalitions together to kind of go after Big Pharma, the distributors like Cardinal Health, amerisource, burge and McKesson those are the big three and they’re flooding our communities with opiates, man Right, because it’s not about regulations, it’s not about doing the right thing, it’s about dollars, man, those pills. It’s about dollars, man. Yeah, and at one point in Summit County there was about 62 opiates, enough for every man, woman and child in our county to get 62 pills.

Travis Bornstein: 27:48

You know what I mean, for every man, woman and child I mean, that’s just in Summit County, West Virginia. Man was just on fire. Yeah, that’s crazy, just was on fire. And so what we did is the Teamsters Union, led by a lot more smarter people than me, put some coalitions together and we kind of used our leverage man, because we have money invested in these companies through our pension funds and through our health insurance funds and through some investments that we have. And so we put some coalitions together and we started showing up at the board of trustees meetings man and it was powerful man. I personally went to two out of three. I went to the McKesson in Florida and I went to and you guys are picketing.

Travis Bornstein: 28:30

We went into the meeting because we had stocks, we had shares, we were shareholders.

Todd Bertsch: 28:34

Man, oh, you were in the meeting, holy cow. We went into the meetings, man, yeah.

Travis Bornstein: 28:37

So it was awesome because, listen, you know, we have shares, man, and we put coalitions together, and so we had rights to speak on the floor and to bring questions.

Todd Bertsch: 28:47

What was that? Like it was awesome, man. I mean, were they like holy shit? What are these guys doing here?

Travis Bornstein: 28:52

It was intense, man, and again, there was a lot more smarter people than me. We had attorneys, we had very educated people in the space and my job was to share my story man.

Travis Bornstein: 29:03

Because I got to put a real Right Right. But it was humbling in a way, but felt good in a way too, to look the CEO in the face, man, this multimillionaire who’s who’s thinking about profits before people, right, you know what I mean and and and look him in the face and say this is what’s going on, man, right, this is what’s going on, you know. And so it was. It was a little bit therapeutic for me too at the time, and so that was one part that we had in kind of holding Big Pharma accountable. Listen, some of those shareholder meetings. They stopped the CO’s bonuses, they stopped wage races, they put reforms in place, saying we got to start regulating how many this pharmacy in West Virginia gets. You know what I mean. So it had impact, it was powerful and it had good change.

Travis Bornstein: 29:47

And that’s not a credit to me, that’s a credit to the Teamsters Union and a lot of smarter people at the international who had enough foresight to say let’s do something here, man, let’s do something. You know, maybe I helped, triggered it, and then my job was just to put a real face on it. And so, in addition to that, what you’ve seen is you started seeing lawsuits from states and from counties coming after the pharmaceutical companies too, right, and so Summit County and Cuyahoga County got the first bellwether case of suing the pharmaceutical companies those companies we’re talking about, and there’s a couple more in there too. And so I got to work directly with Summit County and Cuyahoga County and their lawyers and their staff to prepare a case to go to trial, and I was the only family witness that the judge said could testify, and of course those attorneys on the other side were trying to keep me off the stand.

Travis Bornstein: 30:44

You know, they didn’t want to. They didn’t want to put a face on it. They don’t want to put a face on it, right, that humanizes it Right. And so I worked, I worked with the County and ultimately it settled. I was up in a hotel room in Cleveland getting ready to testify here in the next morning. They settled the case for $260 million County. You know what I mean. So that was the first case. You know what I mean and you know I got mixed opinions and all that stuff. You know what I mean. You know, listen, money’s money and we’re going to try to put that money in. The county is going to try to put that money to good use and you know it doesn’t change much for me.

Todd Bertsch: 31:18

Right.

Travis Bornstein: 31:19

Right, you know what I mean. It doesn’t. It doesn’t doesn’t bring my son back, it doesn’t bring all the kids back. But you know, listen, man. I mean I feel privileged in a lot of ways that God’s given me a voice. Sometimes there’s a lot of families, you know, in the community that’s hurting, that’s suffering. They don’t have a voice. You know what I mean. They don’t got a stage. I take that very serious. You know, be the right voice for people, man. You know what I mean and I’ve kind of always done that. It’s kind of who I am. You know what I mean. I’ve tried to always stand up for people. I think I learned that in the Marine Corps. I learned that as a leader. That was the pharmaceutical side of it.

Todd Bertsch: 31:51

I think the county, summit County, got about $110 million, something like that They’ve created an opiate abatement fund and slowly is putting those funds out in the community to try to promote positive change. Do you feel?

Travis Bornstein: 32:08

like we’re at a place where it’s we are chained making some, so so look, here’s the trick bag, here’s the trick bag. Is there’s so many moving parts in this epidemic? Right, and I’m not a blame, I’m not a blame game guy, I, I’m more of a solution guy, Like you know. Let’s identify the problem and let’s start working to try to solve it. And that’s personally what I’m trying to do and everything we’re doing in our organization and the reason why we got into this RCO. There’s a reason for it, there’s a purpose, for what I’m trying to do is trying to solve the problem. So I want to be careful because I don’t want to look like I’m just blaming this dude and blaming this dude and blaming that guy. There’s, there’s, there’s lots of moving parts, man, and there’s an education part that we have to understand this thing. You know what I mean? Like, are we better today than we were 10 years ago? Sure, Sure, we are, Sure we are. Has the stigma associated with drug addiction and alcoholism better? I don’t know, I don’t know man. Can them better? I don’t know, I don’t know man. Can we do more? Absolutely, you know, I always talk about, like, identify the gaps and let’s start filling those gaps and it’s the whole reason why I got into, and our organization got into, the RCO space, which is recovery community organization.

Travis Bornstein: 33:21

So you know traditional treatment and go through 30, 60, 90 days of therapy. For most of us it’s 30 days or less. I’ll give you my instant case. I got Teamster health insurance, I got Cadillac health insurance. I got the best insurance you can have and in my program it was two-time lifetime, 21 days. So Tyler got 42 days of inpatient treatment. That was the best health insurance at the time.

Travis Bornstein: 33:44

So what we have a tendency to do is you go through traditional treatment 30, 60, 90 days, we tap you on the butt and we say good luck. And then we wonder why people fail. Right? The relapse rates are like 70% in the first year. It’s because recovery is a long-term game. It’s not a short-term game and we keep throwing short-term strategies at it. We got to develop long-term strategies, right? And that’s the reason why I stepped into the space. Like the RRCO, you can be there forever, man. It’s not like 30 days and you’re out 60 days and you can’t come back. No man, we got dudes with 25, 30, 35 years in recovery, mentoring young folks with a couple months recovery man. You know what I mean. Recovery is a long-term strategy. We came in this space I knew nothing about drugs and alcohol man. Now I’m getting educated here, but I’m coming a long way, man.

Travis Bornstein: 34:36

You know what I mean, and we always talk about love and compassion. Man, you walk in the doors at Tyler’s place. Man, we’re going to first. Someone’s going to recognize you, someone’s going to shake your hand, someone’s going to meet. I don’t care what you look like, I don’t care if you got one shoe on, one shoe off, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. Right, we’re going to try to help you. We’re going to try to get you the resources you need. We’re going to do everything we can to try to help you and put a team around you so you can get to long-term recovery. The best way we can do that is with love and compassion.

Travis Bornstein: 35:05

Man, you know, my wife has all these little things. That’s so unique and different. You know, like cup of coffee, like we don’t give you a, we don’t give you a, we give you a real cup. Man, we give you a real cup. We don’t give you a plastic cup, we don’t give you a styrofoam cup, we give you a real cup. And it’s so funny because reached down in that counter man pull out a real cup and her pot cup and they’re like I get a real cup. Yeah, you get a real cup bud.

Todd Bertsch: 35:31

You know what I?

Travis Bornstein: 35:31

mean, and it’s just like little things.

Todd Bertsch: 35:38

Let’s just treat people.

Travis Bornstein: 35:39

Right.

Todd Bertsch: 35:40

Yeah, Well, it goes back to the whole thing. It’s compassionate and to me it says stick around, Stay.

Travis Bornstein: 35:47

Yeah, long term You’re welcome, you know yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 35:49

Come on in and have a seat. Yeah, versus, go ahead and pick up the styrofoam and go ahead and head out. You know what I mean? Hey, listen man, it’s just details.

Travis Bornstein: 35:58

Yeah, it matters, man, you know. Look, we drive love and compassion in our place. We sit down with our volunteers. I make sure that their heart’s right man.

Todd Bertsch: 36:12

So this is like an onboarding, a training process.

Travis Bornstein: 36:14

Yeah, and it’s just like words matter, man. You know what I mean. It’s real simple. This is not hard stuff. How about we just treat the person like that’s your son or that’s your daughter, or that’s your wife or that’s your husband? Right, if we just start there, we’re going to be a whole lot better, man. We’re going to be a whole lot better. You know what I mean. And so it’s been awesome. Man, I can’t tell you how blessed I feel, and you know me and my wife went through this. You know we got.

Travis Bornstein: 36:41

It took us seven years to get the place built. From the time we we gained, the time we got the donations uh, from the Teamsters, you know over a million dollars. It took us seven years to get this built. Lots of reasons for that.

Travis Bornstein: 36:55

Uh, like you said, we pivoted. We were in a commercial building, we pivoted to a residential building. Covid happened. The whole world fell apart. Right, I’m trying to raise, even though I got a million dollars, I’m trying to build a commercial building. I’m at like 6,000 square feet at $5 million. I can’t get there, man. I can’t get there and my staff, my team’s getting frustrated.

Travis Bornstein: 37:18

We’re seven years into this thing. We’re telling the community we’re going to do something. Everybody’s finally just looking at us like, come on, come on, you know what I mean. And we felt the pressure of that man, but we wanted to do it and we wanted to do it right, you know, and we did a ton of research and how we were going to land in the space that we landed in. And so finally I came back to my wife and my and our team and I was like, listen, we got a million dollars. I can build a hell of a nice house for a million dollars. And she was like, yeah, I think we want to build, and we both like log cabin, log cabin. And she goes we don’t have enough money. I go we don’t know if we don’t try, man. So we started vetting log cabin builders, man, and we’re in the right town for that.

Travis Bornstein: 37:56

We are man. So you know, our down the road is Amish town right, and we hooked up with Marion Miller he’s the principal owner of Walnut Valley Log Homes and we shared our story and we told him we were trying to do and he’s like, man, I want to work with you guys. He goes I want to work with you guys and he goes I built this house in Pennsylvania. He goes you’d be willing to go over there and take a look at it? And I’m teasing a little bit and I go yeah, let’s do it, man. So he got on his horse, we got in our truck and we went out there you know, no, that’s not true. So we went out there, man, and we walked into this log cabin and it was just beautiful and it was like Shelly and I were like this is it man? This is what we’re going to do you know what I mean?

Travis Bornstein: 38:37

And so we it was a residential home and we tweaked it, changed some things, built out the basement totally different, hit the commercial code and man, it’s just awesome. Man, yeah, it’s just awesome, yeah. So the other thing on that, we bought the property where they found Tyler right, it was a couple acres on the corner of Alfred and Arlington and that’s where we thought we were going to do this project on. We realized that there wasn’t enough property. So then I started approaching the county about land bank, and do you got any property? And we were real familiar. This is the old Edwin Shaw property. We were real familiar with that because Shelly and I both grew up in that area. And so I approached the county about making a donation and they donated 10 acres to us. And so that’s how we got the property.

Travis Bornstein: 39:23

And it’s been a lot of work, man, it’s been a lot of work. And it’s been a lot of work, man, yeah, it’s been a lot of work. What people don’t see behind the scenes is all the blood, sweat and tears that went into getting it done. It’s just not easy, man Right, it just was not easy. There’s so many times my wife would wake up in the morning and she always is in prayer time and devotion time and most of the time I’d come down and she’d just be crying. Man, she’s like we can’t do this, man, we can’t do it. And I can show. I don’t have the answers, but we’re just going to keep trying, right, we’re just going to keep trying. We’re just going to keep showing up.

Todd Bertsch: 40:00

We’re going to keep showing up man, and you know my team. It’s a long time to hold on to that hope.

Travis Bornstein: 40:06

Yeah. So let me just share one more thing. You know, seven years in the Bible is a year of completion, right? So it’s a number in the Bible, right, it means something. Seven years to the date of Tyler’s death, we got our certified blueprints approved from the county. Seven years to the date of Tyler’s death, man, we got to do a better job of loving people and taking care of people and taking care of our neighbor man, and that’s just where we’re at as an organization.

Todd Bertsch: 40:42

Yeah, it’s a simple concept.

Travis Bornstein: 40:44

It really is the golden rule.

Todd Bertsch: 40:46

It really is, and I think you guys are paving the way for us with Hope United for sure. Yeah, yeah, what a crazy story. Yeah, you know of resilience and hope Hope’s in the name. But you know that you guys stuck with it, stuck together and made it happen.

Travis Bornstein: 41:06

Yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 41:06

Made that dream come true and now you know I’ve seen some of the numbers from your impact report yeah, You’re helping people.

Travis Bornstein: 41:13

It’s crazy, a lot of people. So I mean congratulations to you.

Todd Bertsch: 41:17

I mean I know you’re hard on yourself and very humble man, but to you and your wife and your kids and your team, like you’re, you’re making a big difference.

Travis Bornstein: 41:26

All it takes is one person, right? Yeah, so you know the way I’ll say that. And you know, try and encourage people is like you know, listen, man, I’m not dumb enough to think that I can change the world, but I’m smart enough to know that I can change something, man, and let’s just start in our neighborhood. That’s it. Let’s just start in our neighborhood. Like what, if we can change our neighborhood and then maybe we can change our city, then maybe we can change our county, Then maybe we can change our state, maybe we can change our country. You know what I mean? That’s the ripple effect, right, that’s the ripple effect that takes momentum.

Travis Bornstein: 42:04

Ain’t going to happen in stone going.

Todd Bertsch: 42:07

You know what I mean. Well, 10 years, you can see where we’re at. I mean, there’s still a lot to be done, but there’s a lot that’s been.

Travis Bornstein: 42:13

Yeah, like I said, there’s so many moving parts in this space and there’s nothing easy about it, man. And you know, one of the things that you know is near to me is veterans. Man, you know what I mean, and I served in the Marine Corps and I’ve had the opportunity to work with the Valor Court here in Summit County. And the Valor Court is veterans that’s gotten some type of trouble, and most of the time it’s with drugs and alcohol, and they got this program through the Veterans Court that you know. You get through the program, you complete it off, you can. You can really save yourself a lot of jail time or a felony or lots of things right, give you a chance to put your life back together. And so I’ve had the opportunity to partner with the court. We helped them with peer support and I set up a veterans program, a VR program, which is a virtual reality program. We also have a veteran only meeting and then I do some mentorship with some veterans.

Travis Bornstein: 43:09

Man, it’s so humbling, bud. It’s so humbling because you’re talking about dudes that have given the best part of their life to their country, right, and then they come back home and nothing makes sense to them, man, and they struggle with drugs and alcohol because they’re masking their pain, because that’s what trauma is, man. You know, we just don’t abuse drugs and alcohol because the party’s on. Most of the time it’s around trauma. We’re masking our pain, whether that’s physical pain, mental pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain. We’re masking our pain right. And I get the opportunity to sit down with some of these guys and it’s been so humbling for me.

Travis Bornstein: 43:48

I’ll give you another one. How you do the little things is how you do everything. You know what I mean and you know what the, what the military does, and it’s regardless of whether you’re in the marine corps or any branch. You just constantly training, training, training, training, and you’re just doing the same stuff over and over and over. You know why? Because you have to, because it’s a response. Then you just respond we’re talking about habits. Yeah Right, right, a hundred percent man, malcolm Gladwell.

Travis Bornstein: 44:17

Yes.

Todd Bertsch: 44:18

You have to do the reps.

Travis Bornstein: 44:19

Yes.

Todd Bertsch: 44:20

And I was just listening to a podcast the other day. They were talking about that exact thing. Yes, when it’s, you know who are you going to call when there’s, you know, a traumatic event. You call 911 first responders and they’re they’re going to be able to deal with it, because they’ve been through it time and time, yeah, does it ever get easier. You look at but, but you can respond instead of react and then just building it into a habit.

Travis Bornstein: 44:46

So I always say you can’t give something away you don’t have. So if you’re not full of energy and passion and enthusiasm, you can’t give it away.

Todd Bertsch: 44:55

You can’t give it away.

Travis Bornstein: 44:56

So the first person you better take care of is you, because nobody else is going to. You know why? Because nobody gives a shit Right, they don’t care man. So Because nobody gives a shit Right, they don’t care man. So you better care, you better care.

Todd Bertsch: 45:09

Right, right. We invest in everything else. The best investment we can make is in ourselves. A hundred percent Right, a hundred percent. Man Travis, this has been great man, this has been. I just, I don’t know. I was thinking about it this morning. It’s just a rollercoaster of emotions. I was thinking about it this morning. It’s just a rollercoaster of emotions. Yeah, I can’t even. I try to put myself in your shoes. I can’t even imagine. I mean, this is truly two words resilience and hope. Yeah, and inspiration. You know, for people, second chances yeah, you had a second chance. Yeah, 100%. You know you’re a new man and changed this organization. You’ve built this movement. I mean, there’s just so many things to be proud of and I know you’re hard on yourself, but, man, what you’ve done is, I mean, it’s an incredible story built off of a horrible tragedy, but what you’re doing is making a difference.

Todd Bertsch: 46:01

Yeah, thank you, it is, and I am so grateful that you came back into my life. I know that we’re going to continue to have conversations hopefully get a workout in at some point and come out to your place and shoot some stick, meet some people, maybe volunteer, you know if there’s one. You’ve dropped a lot of great nuggets here today.

Travis Bornstein: 46:27

If there’s one thing you just what do you want to mic drop and just leave us with? Well, I think you know we got to realize is we need each other, we need community, we need people around us, right. And like when I talk to parents and I’m in schools, or or I talked to parents and most of the parents say something like this you know, my daughters are doing pretty good, my son’s in the basement vaping, watching video games, right, and I think young men today are struggling and there’s lots of reasons. Like I said, there’s lots of moving parts, right. But just to hit you with some quick numbers, man, you know, three out of four of opiate addiction is men, right. Three out of four homeless homelessness is men. 90% of incarceration is men.

Travis Bornstein: 47:10

Right, we have to do a better job of coaching, mentoring, training and encouraging young men and people my age. We don’t do a good job of it, we have a shit, we have a stuff. We have a tendency to say, yeah, get your shit, let’s go Right, right, and we have no empathy back for people. Man, and one of the things I’m personally doing is trying to understand what are the struggles of a young man today, because, for the first time in the history of our country, 30-year-olds are not doing as good as 30-year-olds of our parents. It’s first time ever, right? And so there’s real problems going on in our country, man, and there’s real problems going on and I think we need to understand some of that. And then we need to do a better example of rallying around young guys and helping them and encouraging them and not judging them. Get over to judging, get over to stupid stuff, man Right, get over it. You know what I mean and meet people where they’re at and love people, encourage people, and the best way we can do that is you got to show up. You got to show up, man, and all of us are in unique environments.

Travis Bornstein: 48:16

I promise every listener right now has somebody in their life they could mentor. They have somebody in their life, they could reach out. They got a nephew, they got somebody like man. I need to reach out to that kid. I need to do my part and try to help that kid, right, you know? And there’s no self-made people, right, I don’t believe in that crap for a second Self-made millionaires. I don’t believe in that man. I know. I’ve had mentors my whole life. I’ve had people that poured in me and that’s helped me grow as a person and helped me succeed. We need each other. We need community.

Todd Bertsch: 48:49

We all need help. We need and it’s okay. Yes, Honestly, I struggled with that concept for the longest time we do as men. I can do it all oh blue collar, I can work my ass off. Yeah, I’ll get there. I don’t need anything, hell or high water, I’ll get there. Yeah, you know what For what?

Travis Bornstein: 49:06

Yeah, it’s okay, I don’t need to have all the.

Todd Bertsch: 49:08

I don’t need to be the smartest guy in the room.

Travis Bornstein: 49:10

I need to be smart enough to say I need help, it’s okay, right, here’s what I always say man, because in the team search we have lots of crafts and divisions that we represent, right, and I came out of the freight division. So you know I was I. So you know I was. I was an expert in the freight contract. I worked it for a long time and you know police did negotiated, been in negotiations. But I wasn’t an expert in the car haul division. I wasn’t an expert in the brewery and soft drink division. I wasn’t an expert in the construction division.

Travis Bornstein: 49:55

You don’t have to know it all, man. You know what I mean we need help. It’s OK to say I need help. It’s OK to say I’m hurt. It’s OK to say, hey, man, I’m screwing this up. Can you bail me out, bud, first, me first. You know what I mean.

Travis Bornstein: 50:05

Humble ourselves a lot more. Man, look in the mirror. I think you know one of the things you had on there and we talked a little bit about through your team’s career. You know what’s the biggest disappointment or hardest event to get through. And I’ve been through lots of stuff, man. I’ve had strikes, I’ve had companies go out of business, I’ve had hard negotiations, I’ve had people lose jobs and those are always very, very painful man, very hard.

Travis Bornstein: 50:30

But I think, for me personally is when you disappoint somebody, right? Somebody believes in you and you had to pivot. You had to, you had to make a different decision, you had to make a decision that he didn’t like, and that disappointment’s hard. It’s hard and I think we should own it. I think we should take it seriously.

Travis Bornstein: 50:45

Okay, but at the end of the day, you got to look in the mirror. And when you look in the mirror, are you satisfied? Can you look in the mirror and said I did the very best job I could with the facts I had. I did the very best job I could with with the facts that I had in front of me at that time? And if you can look in the mirror and I think for me, however, it shakes out, for me, I’m looking in the mirror, bud, I’m looking in the mirror. What do you see? I want to see a dude that could change right, that could adapt, that could overcome, that believed in people, that never gave up on people, right? I don’t care how many times you relapsed, you always get a second chance, man, you always get a second chance, and I think that’s the dude I want to see Compassion and empathy.

Todd Bertsch: 51:34

Yeah, that’s it.

Travis Bornstein: 51:35

Yeah, A hundred percent man.

Todd Bertsch: 51:37

Well, I like what I see brother, love it man.

Travis Bornstein: 51:39

Thank you friend. Thank you, yep, it’s awesome yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 51:44

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. You are on your way to growth, transformation, and joy. If you find this episode helpful, please like and share it with your friends and, by all means, please leave us a review. You can also view the show notes and subscribe to the BOLT Newsletter at toddbertsch.com. Remember real change takes time. Start small and watch that growth take shape.