Barbara Lang – Former DC Chamber of Commerce President and CEO

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Barbara Lang on the need for more women in Congress ~

“Women tend to try to solve problems, and not as much as the politics . . . I’ve talked to a number of women that are in Congress and say, “Why are you there?” They’re not there to be on a power trip. They’re there to solve something.”

Andy Ockershausen: Hi. This is Andy Ockershausen and this is Our Town. I have the absolute total pleasure to talk to a wonderful, wonderful woman who’s been a very dear friend for many years. Unfortunately, she’s out of the spotlight right now, but she ran our Chamber of Commerce better than anybody ever did before or since. Welcome Barbara Lang to Our Town.
Barbara Lang: Andy, thank you so much. Delighted to be here.
Andy Ockershausen: Well, you are a big part of Our Town and we try to … Started this program to talk about all the good things that are going on in Our Town. A lot of them don’t know about them. You know them because you live with them, but Our Town is exploding and we’re all part of the explosion, what we see at the wharf, what we see at the yard, what we see that’s going up on Connecticut Avenue. Isn’t it wonderful thing?

Barbara Lang on Life in Our Town at the Time She Started with the DC Chamber of Commerce

Barbara Lang: Absolutely it is. I went to the Chamber of Commerce right after 9/11 and that was a time when we weren’t sure what was going to happen. Washington was like an armed camp. The airports were closed. Retail was suffering. All the hotels were laying people off. The thing I used to say is, “My goodness, are the locust coming next,” because we had all the murders that were happening, the Montgomery guys that were the sniper shootings and people were scared to death around that.
There was so much happening and you just thought are we ever, ever going to recover from this? By God, now you look at Washington and the suburbs as well, because it all goes to make this region such a dynamic place.
Andy Ockershausen: Our Town has exploded with so many great things, and you made many of them happen Barbara. How in the world … You were working for Uncle Sam and then you left that and went into the private sector. Is that correct?
Barbara Lang: I really only had-
Andy Ockershausen: Fannie Mae?
Barbara Lang: Yeah, but Fannie Mae was private.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s correct. I know that.
Barbara Lang: It’s private, but people thought it was government owned, but it was a private New York … Publicly traded on the Stock Exchange. But prior to that I was with IBM for 25 years. So I spent 25 years in IBM.
Andy Ockershausen: Not in this market though, right?

25 Years at IBM – The Road to Our Town

Barbara Lang: A little bit in this market, yeah. I started in Jacksonville, Florida. I then moved to Atlanta and then to Washington. I spent a total of 25 years at IBM and then Fannie Mae recruited me and so I went in as a vice-president and chief procurement officer at Fannie Mae and spent 10 years there, then went to the Chamber of Commerce.
Andy Ockershausen: You’re too young for that Barbara.
Barbara Lang: Oh, aren’t you sweet? Thank you. You keep saying that.
Andy Ockershausen: I’m trying to think of the name … Kent Cushenberry? Do you remember that name?
Barbara Lang: Kent Cushenberry? I worked for Kent when he headed up community relations. That was one of my last two jobs with IBM.
Andy Ockershausen: He was a very dear friend, a very dear friend.
Barbara Lang: Yeah. He was great and sorry to see him go. He’s somebody that left here all too soon.
Andy Ockershausen: Oh yeah, he was young.
Barbara Lang: He was a young man.
Andy Ockershausen: Before him there was a man … What’s our favorite sports announcer, Timmy Brant. His father had the job before Kent did way back. Tim Brant, do you remember him?
Barbara Lang: Yeah. I know the name, but I did not know him. Yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: I knew IBM … IBM was on … When I grew up in Our Town was on Connecticut Avenue, and the only reason we knew it was everybody wore a hat.
Barbara Lang: And pinstriped suits and I call them those Cadillac shoes, the wingtip loafers. That was the IBM uniform back in the day.
Andy Ockershausen: It was everywhere, IBM was such an important part of Our Town, and still is. I mean they changed their business dramatically I’m sure.
Barbara Lang: It is, and the culture has changed a lot. When I was with IBM in Jacksonville, Florida I remember that women didn’t wear pants. So one day when they finally said that we could wear pantsuits, suits now, to the office we all did it on the same day because we did not want to be the odd woman out, so we all walked in with our new tailored pantsuits and that was a big day at IBM.
Andy Ockershausen: I would say so, because it was strictly a white male culture that I grew up with.
Barbara Lang: Very much so.
Andy Ockershausen: Very much so, and Kent wasn’t. As a matter of fact, he helped break that culture. The things you were talking about, how things have changed for women so dramatically because there are a lot of important women running this town now.
Barbara Lang: And that’s good to see.
Andy Ockershausen: Oh, I think it’s great.

Barbara Lang on the Need for More Women in Congress

Barbara Lang: I wish there were a lot more women in Congress on Capitol Hill. Maybe we would have some better outcomes, you know?
Andy Ockershausen: I hope so. They’d certainly get along a lot easier. They wouldn’t be fighting each other and punching-
Barbara Lang: They go to … Women tend to try to solve problems, and not as much as the politics and the hitting and the jabbing back and forth, and if you ask … I’ve talked to a number of women that are in Congress and say, “Why are you there?” They’re not there to be on a power trip. They’re there to solve something.
Andy Ockershausen: To accomplish something.
Barbara Lang: And to accomplish something.
Andy Ockershausen: I think that’s great.
Barbara Lang: So I’d love to see more women there. Maybe we would have some better outcomes out of this Congress because-
Andy Ockershausen: How about Barbara Lang?
Barbara Lang: No, no, no, no.
Andy Ockershausen: You live in the city?

Breaking Barriers – Eleanor Holmes Norton | Marie Johns | Del Lewis

Barbara Lang: I live in the city and Eleanor is still in her job, nor do I want her job.
Andy Ockershausen: Eleanor ain’t going anywhere, that’s for sure.
Barbara Lang: I don’t want her job. I think I am too old to embark on that kind of career anyway, but I live in Washington.
Andy Ockershausen: Why? Age has never stopped you Barbara. Age is only a number. Remember that.
Barbara Lang: I remember that, but tell that to my body sometimes.
Andy Ockershausen: Now how about Marie Johns? Marie was another one that broke the ceiling, didn’t she?
Barbara Lang: Yeah. She ended up at Verizon. Absolutely. She was one of the first particular people of color, woman of color-
Andy Ockershausen: That’s what I’m saying. She really was-
Barbara Lang: So she broke it on the female side, but as well on being African American. She’s one of my very good friends. I love her to death.
Andy Ockershausen: She’s a neighbor of ours. We see Marie all the time.
Barbara Lang: Yeah, I know that. Yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: I’m trying to think … Before Marie, the guy was big with the Board of Trade. He was chairman that year.
Barbara Lang: Oh, he’s living-
Andy Ockershausen: White … Not white, he was a man of color.
Barbara Lang: Yeah. I saw him the other day.
Andy Ockershausen: He’s an ambassador, wasn’t he?
Barbara Lang: Yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: Why can’t we remember him?
Barbara Lang: He’s now living in Texas.
Andy Ockershausen: Right. He ran a phone company.
Barbara Lang: Senior moments here.
Janice Iacona Ockershausen: Del Walters?
Barbara Lang: No, Del Lewis.
Andy Ockershausen: Del Lewis.
Barbara Lang: We knew we would come up with it eventually.
Andy Ockershausen: What a great guy.
Barbara Lang: He is.
Andy Ockershausen: He broke the color line too with the phone company.
Barbara Lang: Very much so. He’s in Texas now doing some consulting. I ran into him … He was here in Washington a few months ago and I happened to be in a meeting where he was, but he looks great, doing well.
Andy Ockershausen: He was head of the Board of Trade, I think the first man of color.
Barbara Lang: The first person of color.
Andy Ockershausen: Yeah, I think so.
Barbara Lang: No, I think you’re right, but was chair of the Board.
Andy Ockershausen: Great guy. The good old boys liked him too. But Barbara, you’re career then with the government and the outside, and it ends up now you’re a businesswoman by osmosis, because the Chamber of Commerce … Again, it used to be about 11 people.
Barbara Lang: It had a little more than that.
Andy Ockershausen: There was the cleaners. I remember that. Maybe there were 12 people or something, but it was very small. I’m talking 50 years ago, until you got on the scene. We’ll be right back with Barbara Lang and talk about the Chamber of Commerce.
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The Lang’s – Lights Up at Christmas – A Labor of Love

Andy Ockershausen: Andy Ockershausen, and having a wonder conversation with Barbara Lang. If you don’t know this woman, I can tell you something about her. If you’re ever around Washington, around Arizona Avenue, MacArthur Boulevard at Christmastime, you have never seen a home more beautifully decorated than her home. It’s right there on the corner. It’s a sight to see Barbara. We love it.
Barbara Lang: It would take my husband and I about two weeks, because we did it ourselves other than what was on top of the house. We would hire somebody to come in, because I didn’t want him falling off the ladder so-
Andy Ockershausen: You brought so much oomph to MacArthur Boulevard though. It was great.
Barbara Lang: You know, people would start the first of November and they would come and say, “When are the decorations going to go up?” We would try to turn the lights on on Thanksgiving evening. Sometimes we missed that deadline, so people would start, “Well, when are the lights going to come on?”
I used to get fruit baskets. People would just come and put flowers on the steps or fruit baskets just saying “Thank you for lighting up the neighborhood.” I’m sure PEPCO loved me for that, because my light bill in December and January was like … They’re going to miss me this year because I’m not going to do all that this year.
Andy Ockershausen: Barbara, that’s so bad, because that was such a big part of Our Town and you made it all.
Janice Iacona Ockershausen: That was your signature color.
Barbara Lang: It’s red, and red is my favorite color. Every year I would try to do something different in the yard. I’d add a piece or two or I’d change the design a little bit and I’d sketch it out. Then I’d hand it to my husband and said, “Okay, can you do this?” But it was-
Andy Ockershausen: A labor of love.
Barbara Lang: Well, there’s a story as to how we started doing that. My mother had come up to live with us some 15 years before that.
Andy Ockershausen: She was from Georgia?
Barbara Lang: No, she’s from Florida. She was ill. She had cancer, and we knew that she had about a year or so to live, so I brought her up here, because I couldn’t go down there to live. She loved Christmas, and so one day she was sitting … Because the only thing we used to do was just put up a tree inside the house.
One day she was sitting on the little bench in the window in the family room and she said to my husband … She said, “Gerald, you know a little reindeer outside would look really nice right out there,” so he runs to the store and gets the reindeer and lights up the reindeer. She said, “But now he’s lonely. Why don’t we get another one?” So that’s how we ended up with a herd of reindeer all lit up, and then all this stuff. That is how this all got started.
Andy Ockershausen: Your mom?
Barbara Lang: My mom. Then we just continued the tradition in her honor every year, putting up all those lights, and every year it got bigger.
Andy Ockershausen: It almost is around the block now.
Barbara Lang: It is. Yeah, it is.
Andy Ockershausen: But you started … That whole neighborhood lit up, not just you.
Barbara Lang: That’s right. Before it was just us, but now a lot of people are doing the outside decorations.
Andy Ockershausen: It’s such a great time of year. It’s great for MacArthur Boulevard and for Arizona Avenue. We love it. It was a very important part of our life to go by, wasn’t it Toni? Say hello to Barbara. We said this person has got to be wacky, putting up all those lights. This thing is lit up man, I mean really lit up.
Barbara Lang: That’s why I said PEPCO loved me.
Andy Ockershausen: No question. Barbara, the whole thing of you coming and leaving the private sector to go with … Did they recruit you for the Chamber or were you a member and decided to-

Barbara Lang On Loan for Two Years from Fannie Mae to the DC Chamber of Commerce

Barbara Lang: It was interesting. I represented Fannie Mae on the Chamber’s Board of Directors and at the time-
Andy Ockershausen: They were a member of the Board, Fannie Mae?
Barbara Lang: That’s right. So it … I was getting to the point at Fannie Mae where they were going to make a lot of leadership changes, the chair and the president, and when you start to see those changes happening you start to say the new people may want to bring in their own management team, so let me find a way out before they decide they don’t want me. I always want to be ahead of that curve.
So I was at the Chamber, I knew that board members were not happy with the way things were going, and so what I did was … Charlene Drew-Jarvis was the chair of the board at the time. You know Charlene well.
Andy Ockershausen: Very well.
Barbara Lang: I said what if we could get Frank Raines, who was chairman of the board at Fannie, to sponsor me as an executive on loan for two years and they pay my salary? That way, that would give the Chamber some breathing room in terms of not having to pay an executive.
So she said, “I like that idea.” So I said, “Okay, so let me go and see if I can work my magic inside Fannie Mae,” and I did. I talked to Frank and at first he said, “Well, how about one year?” I said, “I can’t get anything done in one year. I need two years.”
So we ended up with some back and forth, but we ended up … They agreed to pay my salary for two years. The only reservation, the only clause there was that if there was anything that came up regarding Fannie Mae as it relates to policy legislative items, of course I would have to recuse myself.
Andy Ockershausen: Right.
Barbara Lang: It never did. Nothing ever came up, so therefore I spent two years where Fannie Mae paid my salary. Then after that period was up I really retired from Fannie Mae and the Chamber offered me another contract for three years, and then another one after that three years, so it ended up almost 13 years I was there.
Andy Ockershausen: Yeah, but in two years you had expanded the Board.
Barbara Lang: I had paid off their debt.

Relying on Reputation | Creating Value | A Great Team

Andy Ockershausen: You brought in a lot of money. You had put the place on the map. It was on the map, but you made it so important.
Barbara Lang: It had a lot of … They were not utilizing resources well. They did not know how to fundraise. They did not know how to give value for the membership. It’s not a charity, and that’s what I would say to large businesses, “I don’t want your money because you feel sorry for us. I want your money because we’re going to give you some value for that membership back to your company,” and that’s what we did.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s a great recruiting tool too.
Barbara Lang: Yeah. It’s not a charity. Don’t write me a check because it’s a charity.
Andy Ockershausen: It’s not a gift. It’s an investment.
Barbara Lang: No, it’s an investment and we’re going to go represent you. I mean the bankers were knocking at the door when I got there because the Chamber owed BB&T a lot of money. I said, “You don’t know me, but let me tell you what I’m going to do. This is what when we’re going to pay this off and I commit to you we will do that.” A lot of it, because they didn’t know me, they relied on my business acumen and reputation-
Andy Ockershausen: Your reputation was fabulous.
Barbara Lang: … That I would do what I said I was going to do. We paid off that loan in less than a year, paid off that money. One of my board members called me and said, “Who did you shoot to do this? Where did you get the money?” I said, “That’s okay. We didn’t do anything illegal that would get the Chamber in trouble,” but it was really hard work, working with the board and recruiting a great staff. No leader does these things by themselves.
Andy Ockershausen: No, you had great people.
Barbara Lang: We had a really good group and could show the real value. What you wanted is to have the mix. It just can’t be … A Chamber cannot survive on just being a small business organization. You need the big guys, so therefore you’ve got to show value to what Pepco and a Washington Gas and a Verizon and a Comcast … All of them. Otherwise, they are the ones that pay the rent, because usually your small businesses cannot afford to pay the large dollars, so you’ve got to be able to get the-
Andy Ockershausen: You had to impress them that this woman might know what the hell she’s doing.
Barbara Lang: Yeah, yeah. I had to stop the bleeding first of all, the bleeding of money, and I had to build the reputation. And for a while that reputation was me, but then you wanted to move that from it’s not about me, it is about the Chamber. But for a while they had to gamble on me, and that was the way-
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely, but it wasn’t a gamble though. It wasn’t much of a gamble because you paid off the loan.
Barbara Lang: We paid off the loan. We brought in a lot of new members and-
Andy Ockershausen: Oh, God, I remember your recruitment. Your recruitment was incredible.
Barbara Lang: We got up to 2,000 members at one time, and when I got there there were about 500 members. I don’t know that they all were dues paying, but they were … And those are the kind that you need, are dues paying members.
Andy Ockershausen: You use their names, that’s for sure.
Barbara Lang: Yeah. Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: We’re talking to Barbara Lang about the DC Chamber of Commerce and what an important part of Our Town it was, and now has been doubly important. We’ll be right back to continue with Barbara Lang.
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Andy Ockershausen: This is Andy Ockershausen and this is Our Town. I’m talking to a delightful, dear, wonderful friend, Barbara Lang, about her life and what is going on with it now. We know about what she did for the Chamber of Commerce. She put it on the map in more ways than one. Now Barbara has moved on to a new endeavor and we’re so happy that you’re still in Our Town.
Barbara Lang: Thank you. Thank you. I love it. I would never consider leaving Washington. It is my adopted town. I’ve been here 30 years now, so it’s now my town. I haven’t been here as long as you Andy, but I’ve been here a long time.
Andy Ockershausen: I was born here. I would never leave.
Barbara Lang: When I decided to leave the Chamber back in … Really it was in 2013. I didn’t leave until 2014. I looked around to decide kind of what is it I want to do. I’m of the belief that when things are going really well … My last year at the Chamber we raised more money than we ever had.
Andy Ockershausen: And got more members.
Barbara Lang: We had more legislative wins. I mean we were on top of the world. That is the time to leave, when things are going well, so I decided to leave then. I looked around to see what else I wanted to do. I’m not the retiring type. I’ve retired three times. I fail at retirement.
Andy Ockershausen: You’re too gorgeous to retire ever.

Lang Strategies, LLC

Barbara Lang: So my COO from the Chamber had always said, “When you leave I’m leaving too. I’m not staying.” So we didn’t realize that we would end up together, but he, me and my husband formed this consulting firm, so there were the three partners. It’s called Lang Strategies LLC, and it’s www.langstrategies.com. We laid out our business plan around what we saw at the chamber that businesses needed, what were the voids that they needed.
We do a number of things. We’ve got about five practice areas. We have an international practice, so we’re working with businesses from Italy and from Switzerland. In fact, on Saturday we’re spending all day with about 20 Italian companies that are coming here that want to do business here. What we do in that practice-
Andy Ockershausen: Working together with the community?
Barbara Lang: Well, no. What we try to do is find the right jurisdiction for them, negotiate tax incentives for them, get them if the need a partner, depending on what they are selling … A lot of them are in manufacturing and the food business. We just signed on a client that makes museum cases, so artifacts and all of that that you preserve papers and things in for museums, they build these kinds of things. So that’s the kind of … It’s that kind of client. That’s our international practice.
The other practice that we have is executive leadership and change management. We go in … You’ve got a CEO with a new vision or new mission, and you’ve got to change the behavior of the team that’s there or find new executives to be in there. We have … I call him my corporate shrink that’s a consultant for us to help people with that, so we do a lot of group work as well as we do one-on-one coaching with people on how to change the way you work.
This environment that we’re all living in is changing every day, the political environment, the business environment, so how do you get people to adapt to the change? Because if you don’t change you’re going to be left behind.
Andy Ockershausen: Yeah, you’re out of it.

On Working with the City of Detroit and John Hill

Barbara Lang: You’re out of the game. So we go in and work with companies to do that, and municipalities as well. Our largest client was the City of Detroit. We finished some work there at the end of last year. We went in and did executive change management. They were just coming out of bankruptcy, and so they … This is the great American city that really fell on such hard times.
Andy Ockershausen: Was Dave Bing still the mayor? Was he still there when you went-
Barbara Lang: No. No. There’s a new mayor.
Andy Ockershausen: Because he’s from Washington, Dave Bing.
Barbara Lang: Right. I worked directly for John Hill, who headed the Federal City Council here.
Andy Ockershausen: Yeah. I know John. Of course.
Barbara Lang: He’s the court appointed CFO up there and has been there for several years, so he got them out of bankruptcy.
Andy Ockershausen: He did a great job here, John did.
Barbara Lang: Yeah. Yeah. We worked with his organization and spent about a year and a half up there. What we do we can do with municipal governments as well, but our primary target is the private sector.
Andy Ockershausen: The business community?
Barbara Lang: The business community. Yeah. Then the third thing that we do is look at processes and procedures, looking for efficiencies. We ended up doing that in Detroit as well. That wasn’t what we started out doing, but looking at their processes.
Andy Ockershausen: They needed it, that’s what you discovered, right?
Barbara Lang: Yeah. Absolutely. So it just morphed into us working … Now that we’ve got the executive team all on board, then how do we change some of their processes to make them more efficient?
Andy Ockershausen: Certainly the business community up there has now really come alive. I read about it, new buildings, new … They used to be the motor capital of the world and it got away from them.
Barbara Lang: Absolutely. Downtown looks really great. Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase and other executives have put a lot of money into that to revitalize that city. They still need some work in the neighborhoods, because you have … You’ll go on a street with 15 houses as an example, and three of them have somebody occupied in them. The others are abandoned, so those three are paying for the utilities and the infrastructure of the other 15 that are there, so they still have some work, but they are … They’re getting there. It’s starting to come back.
Andy Ockershausen: From what I’ve read about it, it’s really happening in Detroit.
Barbara Lang: Yeah. It’s starting to come back. If I were younger and a real estate investor, you could go buy like a four-bedroom home when we were working up there for $20,000 dollars, I mean that’s how cheap the property was. But I’m past that stage in my life where I feel I can do that. But you could … There’s just great … And there still is. I mean it’s probably more than 20,000 today.
Andy Ockershausen: I’m glad you talk about Detroit, because it’s off of most people’s radar, but bringing it up opens my eyes up because I read about it, and I felt so bad for them for years, and then I realized what great things are happening in the midwest. Ford is still in Dearborn. They didn’t leave.
Barbara Lang: That’s right, and GM is still there.
Andy Ockershausen: GM is still there?
Barbara Lang: Yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: The woman that took over GM, her father works in the production line. Isn’t that a great story?
Barbara Lang: Right. It’s very good.
Andy Ockershausen: She is really a powerhouse, that Mary. She’s something else. I can’t tell you how enjoyable this is Barbara, talking to you. You’re getting me enthused. I might invest in Detroit now.
Barbara Lang: Yeah, go spend a little money. I know they would love that. Downtown looks terrific. It really has come back. You feel safe. We worked out of the Municipal Building right on the water there. The GM Tower is across the street. The winters are still brutal, but we stayed in a hotel that was very close by, so it worked out fine. We enjoyed our time there and met some wonderful people.
Andy Ockershausen: My grandson just graduated the University of Michigan. He’s an electrical something. He got a job in Detroit. I said, “Why would you leave Ann Arbor and go to Detroit?” He said, “For money.” I said, “That’s my boy. You go where the money is.” But he’s working in downtown Detroit on that Eight Mile Road or some damn thing. But he was telling me how great … He loves Detroit. He researched it and he found out … Now he wants to get into marketing. I’m trying to … Janice is helping him and I’m against that. Stay with the engineering.
Barbara, this is so great that you made a commitment to Our Town and you’re not going to leave and that’s so super. I would hope that all these things that you want here are going to come true because Our Town still needs help, and you know that.
Barbara Lang: Absolutely. There are still so many people that are not a part of the renaissance that Washington has enjoyed, and so what you want is people to be able to afford to live here. You want the kinds of jobs that middle-class … Because so much of our middle-class moved away. They moved to where it’s a little cheaper to live or where the schools were better, and so-
Andy Ockershausen: They’re all commuters now.
Barbara Lang: That’s right. What you want is that tax base right here in the District of Columbia. So I think that it’s incumbent on the government and working in concert with the business community, not against the business community, which was always my … When I was at the Chamber, I put my Chamber hat on and I used to say to the Council members, “Not a single one of you have ever made a payroll. You don’t understand what business is like and what it takes to do that.”
Andy Ockershausen: You’re telling the truth.
Barbara Lang: But work in partnership, not against us.
Andy Ockershausen: We’ve got a wonderful female mayor. All the good things are happening to Our Town.
Barbara Lang: Right. Right. Yes.
Andy Ockershausen: And your the biggest part of this. I mean Muriel needs you, because you’ll be helping her I know in her career and what she’s doing. I think Our Town is so super now, and to mention the places you mentioned getting around, I don’t know where you’re going to live, but wherever you go you’re going to bring a lot of light to it.
Barbara Lang: I’m going to stay in DC, so thank you. I looked in Maryland and looked in Virginia and I said no.
Andy Ockershausen: Commuter, you don’t want to be there.
Barbara Lang: No. It doesn’t work for me.
Andy Ockershausen: This has been a wonderful conversation with a very dear friend, and I’m so happy to see she’s going to stay here and bring her magic to Our Town, Barbara Lang. Barbara, thank you so much for being you and we’re here for you 24/7.
Barbara Lang: Thank you.
Andy Ockershausen: We love you.
Barbara Lang: My pleasure. Thank you so much.
Andy Ockershausen: You’re the man.
Barbara Lang: Okay.
Andy Ockershausen: Thank you. This is Andy Ockershausen and Janice Ockershausen and this is Our Town.
Announcer: You’ve been listening to Our Town, Season Three, presented by GEICO, our hometown favorite, with your host, Andy Ockershausen. New Our Town episodes are released each Tuesday and Thursday. Drop us a line with your comments or suggestions. See us on Facebook or visit our website at ourtowndc.com. Our special thanks to Ken Hunter, or technical director, and WMAL Radio in Washington DC for hosting our podcast, and thanks to GEICO. 15 minutes can save you 15% or more on car insurance.