Gary Rabine - The Catholic Entrepreneur Who Built the Rabine Group and Helped Launch Charlie Kirk

Gary Rabine discusses his early work in tree service and driveway paving in northern Illinois and how he developed that into the Rabine Group of companies.  He describes expanding into parking lot paving, trucking, and other construction and facilities services, while incorporating technologies such as AI, robotics, and drones.  Gary explains his method of identifying capable people and building businesses around them, along with his views on leadership and long-term planning.  He also talks about the role of his Catholic faith in his personal and professional life, the work of the Cheryl Rabine Foundation, and the origins of his Ditch Digger CEO podcast.  Additional topics include his early support for Charlie Kirk, his involvement in local and national political matters, a lawsuit concerning federal vaccine requirements that reached the Supreme Court, and his current focus on infrastructure development through Rabine Global and Sight Technologies. In the Spring of 1981, Gary Rabine was a senior in high school trying to decide which way his future would go. While his friends were busy preparing for college, Gary was dreaming of starting a landscaping or paving business. With the experience he gained laboring and running heavy equipment for his dad’s small business, he knew he could do it. One afternoon in his school’s cafeteria, surrounded by college-bound friends, Gary was asked what his college plans were. When he replied that he planned to save money to start a business, a smart ass friend eagerly termed him a “Ditch-Digger”, loudly laughing “Gary’s going to be a Ditch Digger!”. Gary harnessed this memory and used it to motivate himself to walk his own path. 37 years later, Gary Rabine has grown Rabine Paving and many other businesses which are now the Rabine Group of Companies.  Connect with Gary and DitchDiggerCEO... WEBSITE                   https://ditchdiggerceo.com/ X                                 https://x.com/DitchDiggerCEO INSTAGRAM              https://www.instagram.com/DitchDiggerCEO YOUTUBE                  https://www.youtube.com/@ditchdiggerceo   Connect with Hearts of Oak… 𝕏                         x.com/HeartsofOakUK WEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/ PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/ SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/ SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/ *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on 𝕏 x.com/TheBoschFawstin