Korie: Jep and Jessica have four precious kids. They had three girls, Lily, Merritt, and Priscilla, then Jep had the boy he was hoping for, River. Bella and the girls love to play together. Mamaw Kay has the little girls spend the night together often and they have the best time, playing school, restaurant, or whatever. I think no matter how old our daughters get, we’ll still call them the “little girls.” And River is so cute with our Will. He looks up to him and thinks he’s the best big cousin, and Will lets him play with all of his big-boy toys.
AFTER HIGH SCHOOL, ALAN MOVED TO NEW ORLEANS AND FOUND SOME TROUBLE.
My oldest brother, Alan, only recently started working for Duck Commander. After high school, Alan moved to New Orleans and found some trouble. A guy beat him up with a crowbar and messed him up pretty badly. He moved back to Monroe and worked for Duck Commander for a few years. Kay and Phil always talk about how important Al was to the early years of Duck Commander. He and his wife, Lisa, lived in a little house right beside Phil and Kay’s that later became the Duck Commander office for a while. Al and Lisa both worked for Duck Commander and helped to get it off the ground. Al eventually decided to go to seminary school and started working for a local church. Alan has been an incredible preacher for our church for nearly twenty-five years. He’s still preaching and teaching now when he can, but it’s great to have him back in the family business. When we started growing exponentially when Duck Dynasty came along, Korie and I started thinking about who we would need to hire to help us navigate the next steps and Alan was the only one who came to mind. We knew he was the missing piece to the puzzle. It’s great to have all the brothers working at Duck Commander once again!
Alan’s oldest daughter, Anna, has been working with us since she was in high school. After she graduated, she started working full-time and helps in shipping. Her husband, Jay, was a teacher and coach at a high school and up until this year he only worked for us in the summer. But we became so busy that we needed more guys who could build calls. Jay is a good hunter and has a knack for putting the calls together. If you have that skill and are kin, you got a good chance of being a Duck Commander employee.
Korie: I always say that what’s worked well between the Robertson brothers is that none of them wants to do what another brother is doing, nor do they think they can do what another one is doing. There’s no way Willie could do what Jase does. Willie doesn’t have the patience to sit in a chair every day. It’s not his personality. Willie couldn’t do what Jep does, either. Likewise, Jase doesn’t want the responsibility that Willie has because he wants to spend a lot of time hunting and fishing. He doesn’t want to travel all the time going to the business meetings like Willie does. They all value each other’s talent, and they each have their own special skills. Willie uses the team analogy, but I think of it like a band. If you take out one of the instruments, the song just doesn’t sound as good. Everyone has their roles and they are all equally valuable. Thankfully each one really respects the others’ roles in the group. Otherwise, working together would not be fun. I think what Willie brought to the family business was energy, innovation, direction, and motivation, which are attributes that a leader has to have. But Willie knows he couldn’t have gotten Duck Commander to where it is today without his parents, brothers, and everyone else working for the company. A good band doesn’t just consist of the lead singer.
Of course, Phil’s brother, Si, has been working with us forever. Si served in the army for twenty-four years, including a stint in Vietnam. When Si retired from the army, he started putting reeds together for the calls. One of the first things I did when I took over Duck Commander was to look at our efficiency and our workload to see where I could eliminate waste. I found out Si was taking naps every day on Kay’s couch! I went to Phil and told him it was a problem.
I FOUND OUT SI WAS TAKING NAPS EVERY DAY ON KAY’S COUCH!
“Look, I know he’s your brother and he’s my uncle, but he’s not the kind of worker we need to have,” I told Phil, while trying to make a good first impression.
I was trying to instill a new work ethic and culture in Duck Commander, and I couldn’t have Si sleeping on the job!
“Don’t touch Si,” Phil told me. “You leave him alone. He’s making reeds and that’s the hardest thing we do. Si is the only guy who wants to do it, and he’s good at it. Si is fine.”
Amazingly enough, in the ten years I’ve been running Duck Commander, we’ve never once run out of reeds. Six years ago, Si suffered a heart attack. He smoked cigarettes for almost forty years and then quit after his heart attack, so we were all so proud of him. Even before his heart attack, I wasn’t sure about putting Si on our DVDs because I thought he would just come across too crazy. He cracked us up in the duck blind and we all loved him, but I told Jep and the other camera guys to film around him. Honestly, I didn’t think anyone would understand what he was saying. When we finally tried to put him on the DVDs, he clammed up in front of the camera and looked like a frog in a cartoon just sitting there. He wouldn’t perform. Finally, we put a hidden camera under a shirt on Si’s desk. We were near the end of editing a DVD and showed a shooting scene to Si. He always takes credit for shooting more ducks than he really did. He’s said before that he killed three ducks with one shot! We were watching the patterns hitting the water, and Si started claiming the ducks like he always does and going off on one of his long tangents. After we recorded him, we ran the DVD back and showed it to him. I think Si saw that he was actually pretty funny and entertaining if he acted like himself. We started putting Si on the DVDs and he got more and more popular. Now he’s the star of Duck Dynasty!
Even though Si still takes long naps every day, he’s making up for it on our DVDs. The naps don’t bother me as much anymore, either, because I usually get back one-third of his paycheck in our Friday-night poker games. We begged Si to play poker with us for a long time, but he would never play because he said he loved it too much. Once Si finally showed up at our game, he never stopped coming. I guess he really does love poker that much. His wife, Christine, loves the fact that Si is getting out more and she’s so proud of him. Si has one daughter, Trasa, and a son, Scott. After his heart attack, he decided he was going to start having a lot more fun and saw the bigger picture. In all the years Si has worked for us, never once has he ever really complained. He’ll go off on his little tangents, but he’s never come to me with a real gripe or a complaint. Phil has often said that Si is one of the best men he’s ever seen. He’s right; Si is as good as gold.
Some of my best friends work for us, too. Justin Martin, or Martin as we call him, played football at West Monroe High School. I pick on him, joking that he’s the only man I know who looks dumb but is really smart and looks old but is really young. If you’ve seen him on the show, you know exactly what I’m talking about. He only lacks his thesis to complete a master’s degree in wildlife biology, and he had a full scholarship to college. Martin is actually the only employee we have who ever worked in a sporting goods store that sold hunting products. He understands competitive pricing and inventory. I met Martin when he came to play poker at our house one Friday night. While on summer break from college, Martin was looking for some work. I was going out of town the next week, but I told him to come in and start calling sporting goods stores. About three days later, I received an e-mail from [email protected]. The guy already had a Duck Commander e-mail with his name on it! I really thought he was only going to be with us for a few days and then go back to what he was doing. I never really hired him; he just ended up staying. But Martin is an excellent hunter—which gave him an advantage—and he knows all about animals. Martin will do anything for you, and he is my liaison in the blind. I’ll give him new products that companies want us to try out, and he’ll come back to me with everyone’s feedback. Most important, Martin learned how to make our duck calls, which made him invaluable. Plus, he’s another guy I enjoy hanging out with, and what’s it all worth if you can’t work with people you
like?
I NEVER REALLY HIRED MARTIN; HE JUST ENDED UP STAYING.
John Godwin also works with Jase, Jep, and Martin in the duck-call assembly room. Godwin used to be in the rodeo and worked the graveyard shift at the local paper mill, which is the lifeblood of West Monroe. Godwin worked at the mill for sixteen years before he started working with us. John started going to Bible study at Phil’s house and hung around long enough to get a job with Duck Commander. John is a big hunter and knows about calls. Phil has more than forty duck blinds on his property, and Godwin is the guy who sets up and organizes the decoys and makes sure everything is working properly. He’s also Mr. Fix-It and can fix about anything, from the four-wheelers to the RV. But John is also smart enough to put in the accounting to Walmart and has overseen our shipping department for years. John and his wife, Paula, have been best friends with my oldest brother, Alan, and his wife, Lisa, for years. He’s got a great attitude and is an overall great guy.
Paul Lewis, who was my best friend in high school, is our warehouse manager. Paul and I grew up playing basketball together, and he received a full scholarship to play at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. Paul played against Shaquille O’Neal and LSU one time, and Korie and I were so excited watching him on TV. Shaq fouled Paul, and Paul made one of two foul shots. In 1995, Paul got messed up selling dope and was busted transporting drugs in Texas. He got himself into a lot of trouble and was sentenced to fourteen years in federal prison. Every Friday night while Paul was incarcerated, we got a collect call from a federal prison. I tried to visit Paul as much as I could, but they moved him to federal prisons in Arkansas and Texas, so it was hard. When Paul was released, we had him moved to a halfway house in Monroe. I told the judge from day one that Paul had a job as soon as he was released. Paul made a big mistake, but he was a great friend, and I wasn’t going to give up on him. He got mixed up with the wrong people. We helped him get a truck and moved him into a trailer on Phil’s land. He was married in Phil’s yard, and I was proud to be his best man. He and his wife, Krystle, work for us; they have three children and they just bought a house in town.
Korie: Willie and Paul have talked about how they took two paths in life. They even spoke to a youth group at our camp last summer about how their lives turned out so differently. They told the kids about the two paths you can take in life, and Paul is a perfect example of what can go wrong. But Paul is also a great example of how you can change your life and how it’s not over because you make a mistake. Paul told the kids about how scared he was during that time of his life. He said he had a gun and couldn’t trust anybody, and how he feared it was either kill or be killed. Willie and I have talked about the milestones in his and Paul’s lives, like the year when our oldest son, John Luke, was born or the year in which Willie took over Duck Commander. For Paul, those years came and went while he was in prison. Paul’s life was put on hold for fourteen years because of a stupid mistake he made. But he learned from all of it. His attitude is incredible, and Paul remains one of our closest friends. We love him and his growing family.
Mountain Man came to us in an odd way. Our air conditioner was out and my housecleaner said she knew a guy who went by the name of Mountain Man who could fix it. She and I both shared a common interest in cooling the house down so I told her to get him over here. She warned me: “Now, he talks funny, but he know his air conditioners.” When Mountain Man showed up, I learned she was right. The guy’s speech was slower than pouring honey in January. We became friends and I invited him to watch while we made the pilot episode of Duck Dynasty. We were trying to lift a trailer in the air to hunt out of and I thought I could use all the redneck expertise we could get. He impressed the producers and they thought, “We gotta get this guy on the show somehow.” In that same episode, Korie was having a garage sale and Mountain Man stopped by and bought my squirrel. And so a star was born. He now hosts his own radio show and enjoys people recognizing him. I think he likes the free food the best!
I like to say Duck Commander is a lot like duck wraps. Huh? No, really, it is. It’s a bunch of things that may not seem like they belong together, but when they all come together they make something spectacular. Everyone at Duck Commander brings something special to the table, and rather than fighting against one another, we complement each other. Do we have our disagreements? Of course! But we don’t take away from the unique flavors each one of us brings. We are all held together by a common love for family and for ducks, but more importantly we are fortunate to share a common faith. Our faith is the toothpick that holds the entire wrap together. If it wasn’t for our faith in God, I can assure you, we would fall apart.
RATHER THAN FIGHTING AGAINST ONE ANOTHER, WE COMPLEMENT EACH OTHER.
How do you make a duck wrap? Take a duck breast, soak it well in brine, and then marinate it. You have to season it, split it, and then add in cream cheese, a sliver of real mozzarella cheese, and a half a slice of jalapeño pepper. Then you wrap it with thin (and cheap) bacon, and secure it all with a toothpick. Grill the wrap until the duck breast is medium-rare and the bacon is crisp. The finishing touch is glazing it with anything sweet. We all have our different twists and versions of it. All the employees of Duck Commander make up a great company. Some of our employees are sweet, some are spicy hot, and a few are a bit cheesy. Each one of us has our roles and jobs. When we put everything together right, we do amazing things.
DUCK WRAPS
Simply the best way for my taste buds to eat a duck. I wrap many things, but duck has such a good flavor. Play with it and add different types of “sweets” for topping. Honey is great, but there are others. If you bite into the first one and don’t think it’s done, don’t panic; put them all in a pot and let them steam on low fire.
1/2 cup salt
10 cups water
8 to 12 duck breasts
1 package cream cheese
4 to 6 jalapeños
1 package Phil Robertson’s Cajun Style Rub
1 pound thin-sliced bacon
honey
1. Dissolve salt in water in a large pot.
2. Soak duck breasts in salt water overnight in the refrigerator.
3. Cut jalapeños in half (take out the seeds).
4. Cut an incision down the length of each breast and stuff with cream cheese and one half of a jalapeño.
5. Coat each stuffed duck breast with Cajun Style Rub and wrap each with one slice of bacon, securing the wrap with a toothpick.
6. Cook wraps on an open grill until bacon is crisp and cream cheese starts to ooze out (it’s okay for the wrap to be medium-rare; don’t overcook or it will dry out).
7. Drizzle wraps with honey and cook for an additional 2 minutes.
16
BACK STRAPS
WHATEVER YOU DO, WORK AT IT WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AS WORKING FOR THE LORD, NOT FOR HUMAN MASTERS, SINCE YOU KNOW THAT YOU WILL RECEIVE AN INHERITANCE FROM THE LORD AS A REWARD. IT IS THE LORD CHRIST YOU ARE SERVING.
—COLOSSIANS 3:23–24
To tell you the truth, I love eating deer steak! Duck is good when you turn it into a gumbo or wrap bacon around it, but you really can’t beat good ol’ fried deer steak. It’s so easy to make. You just cut off the back strap, soak it in milk, put it in an egg wash, add a little seasoning, coat it in flour, and then fry it up. My mouth is watering right now thinking about it. Starting Buck Commander was pretty much a no-brainer. Growing up, we did a little deer hunting so we could eat. But hunting deer wasn’t Phil’s first love, so we didn’t do much of it. As I got older and started hunting on my own, I learned that I loved hunting deer. And like Phil, I was able to turn my passion into a successful business. After I took over Duck Commander, I was ready to branch out to something different. I knew that if I could somehow translate what we were doing with Duck Commander to deer hunting, the sky would be the limit. Let’s face it: there are a lot more deer hunters out there than duck hunters.
Phil talked about getting into the deer market for quite a w
hile, but it wasn’t where his passion lay and nothing ever came of it. Jep actually did try it one time. He filmed a deer hunt, but it turned out awful. So Dad thought, “Oh well, let’s just get back to hunting ducks.” But I was young and full of energy and was primed and ready to start something new.
I loved the challenge of going into an entirely different market and learning everything there is to know about hunting a different species, so Buck Commander was born in 2006. For our new company to be successful, I wanted to follow the blueprint of Duck Commander. I knew hunting DVDs would be the most important products we offered. We had to produce DVDs that would make people laugh and say, “Wow!” at the same time. There had to be big deer, humor, and great personalities on the Buck Commander DVDs. I watched deer-hunting shows that were on TV at the time and thought much of what I saw was boring. I believed we could do better.
I LOVED THE CHALLENGE OF GOING INTO AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MARKET.
At the time I started Buck Commander, we were selling a ton of duck DVDs to Walmart. I thought it would be an easy transition to selling deer DVDs. Boy, was I wrong. When I tried to schedule a meeting with the deer-hunting buyer for Walmart, I couldn’t even get him to return my phone calls. The big difference between ducks and deer was that Duck Commander owned the duck market. Deer were an entirely different beast. There was much more competition in the deer market. My whole plan seemed shot—or was it?
The Duck Commander Family Page 17