James Gardner’s Stories, Lessons & Insights

James Gardner shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Hi James, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
The thing I am most proud of building in my life is my strong bond with my family. My wife and kid mean the world to me, and I do work every day to make sure they know that. My parents, sister, and grandmother are all a major part of my life and the bonds I share with them help me remain grounded when I am working through complex or stressful issues at work or in other aspects of my life.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m James Gardner, I live in Prescott, Arizona, and own and operate Permit Pushers LLC and Ponderosa Environmental LLC. Permit Pushers was started by my mom, Kathy Gardner, in 1994, and has served Arizona for 31 years, and we’ve grown to expand beyond our borders since 2018. We offer permit expediting services on a number of project types, from commercial to residential, industrial, to over-the-counter. We cover it all and offer services to create better outcomes for both businesses and individuals.

Ponderosa Environmental was started in 2023 to offer full service onsite wastewater design from soils evaluation to full system design for residential, commercial, industrial, and community scale developments. We have registered sanitarians and designers on hand to provide design and evaluation services.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who taught you the most about work?
I want to say my parents, since they raised me, but honestly, my grandfather taught me so much about work ethic and taking calculated risks. He always told me “stick your neck out”, and encouraged me to try even if I thought I might fail. Fear of failure holds many of us back, but I often look at failure as a form of experimentation, and take lessons from each failure. That’s down to the advice my grandfather gave me as I was growing up.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
As I mentioned in my other answer, failing is something many of us fear, because of the suffering our ego must endure. This suffering is something I have learned to embrace as I try and fail at new endeavors, and that is true in both my business and my life as a husband and parent. I know that I won’t always be perfect, but learning to endure has been one of the gifts of that willingness to fail.

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What’s a cultural value you protect at all costs?
At work I cannot overvalue my employees enough – they are the best asset our company has, and are the lifeblood of what we do. Whether AI is a fad or a revolution that is here to stay, I won’t allow it to replace our valuable people, it the character of each one of them that makes what we do matter. We believe that we are working to help people achieve their goals in meaningful ways, and no bot will replace that.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I hope that people say that I was dedicated to my community and my family. It can be so easy to go after the quick profit, but it is more important to leave a lasting impact of positivity around you, and I hope that people believe I did that.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.permitpushers.com
• Instagram: permitpushers
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/permit-pushers-llc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/permitpushers

Image Credits
First photo on the left is a home we recently permitted for a contractor in Rimrock, AZ. Second is a home we permitted back in 2021 in Cornville, AZ, it’s one of the first of its kind in AZ, a cross-mod manufactured home with site built additions. The third is in Cottonwood, AZ, a commercial nursery operation that we worked on permitting and entitlements for. The fourth and final is a commercial tenant improvement we worked on in Scottsdale, AZ, Outdoor Voices.