The Grey NATO – 298 – Ben Lowry [Watches of Espionage, Luxury Watches, Commercial Diving, and the Coast Guard]
Published on Thu, 05 Sep 2024 06:00:00 -0400
Synopsis
This episode of The Grey Nato podcast features guest Benjamin Lowry, who discusses his varied career path from the Coast Guard to commercial diving to the luxury watch industry. Lowry talks about his current role at Watches of Espionage, a media brand focused on the intersection of watches, military, and intelligence topics. The hosts and guest discuss Lowry's background, his interest in watches and diving, and the growth of Watches of Espionage, including their expansion into video content and product development. They also touch on Lowry's side project, Submersible Wrist, which highlights wrist shots of watches in diving contexts. The episode concludes with some recommendations from the hosts and guest, including a mountain biking app, a retro-style dive mask, and a handheld game emulator.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Grey Nato, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 298 and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support and if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegreynato.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton. I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host James Stacy. And today we're joined by a special guest, a long overdue guest, Mr. Benjamin Lowry, joining us from the great state of Ohio. Ben, welcome. James, how are you doing? Everybody doing great? |
| James Stacey | This is great. I couldn't be better. Ben, what a treat. How are you, dude? Nice to see you even just on a monitor. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah, I'm stoked. Thanks for having me guys. Pretty excited. |
| Jason Heaton | So Labor Day weekend just ended both in Canada and the U.S. as I learned from James last week that Canada has Labor Day, which I've been learning a lot of stuff from the slack. |
| James Stacey | One, I am further south than Jason. Yeah. Ever so slightly, I learned that after I implied on an episode that my home base was TGN North. I am indeed TGN South for sure. And then the other thing I learned recently is that, yeah, Canada had Labor Day before the US. With a U in it. On the previous episode, I said we stole it from you guys. Uh, but apparently, uh, the cross border trade went both ways as far as culture went for, for Labor Day. |
| Jason Heaton | Cool. So good weekend. All of you, Ben, how was yours? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Uh, it was great. I actually had my parents out from Chicagoland, um, where they live. So it was awesome. They came out, we have three kids, twin six year olds and a baby who just turned a year old. So, uh, any kind of chance for mom and I to step out with the grandparents managing everybody is a, is a huge treat. So that was a lot of fun. And the weather was also. Awesome. It was pretty hot last few weeks and it's kind of cooled off. So it's been good. What about you guys? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it was good. I mean, you know, when we talk about weather, we had great weather here and I just think like we're all kind of in this narrow swath of latitudes here in North America. And I think, you know, like great lakes, region, Midwest, whatever you want to call it, like we get such perfect weather this time of year usually. Um, so it's great, but yeah, no, I, I had a, I had a nice time. I, um, did some, a little bit of labor myself. I climbed up on the roof of the Defender and did some caulking of the roof seams that had this persistent leak that always dribbles water on my leg after it rains. So I hopefully took care of that. |
| James Stacey | My Jeep has one of those and it goes directly on the, on the entertainment unit, like the center console just drips directly onto the computer. Saran wrap or something. Thanks for that Chrysler. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was good. Yeah. Well, look, this is going to be a super fun episode. We've got a ton of stuff to get into. Normally, we introduce the guest as sort of the main topic, and we do a full intro then, but we should probably get to the intro now for Ben. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah, really pumped me up too. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, seriously. I mean, you know, I didn't check your Wikipedia page, Ben, before this. So I'm kind of shooting from the hip here. But you know, since I've known you and been following you over the years, you know, you've You've just been all over the map. Every time I would check in with you, you were living somewhere else, doing something else. I think you've got a really varied past and that's going to make for a fun chat today. But, uh, yeah, you, um, served in the coast guard for a few years. Then you moved into commercial diving. Um, we've talked about some of your work in the great lakes, which has been very interesting to hear about. Um, you ended up, I believe going to school in Florida and working for Louis Vuitton, um, for a while in kind of the luxury industry. Um, bounced back to the Midwest. You've, uh, you've done some work with, uh, Teddy, Teddy Baldessar, um, with that, that great group there. And, uh, most recently you've joined watches Vespionage, which is a really exciting thing that we can dig into. Um, and then your, your side project, if you want to call it that submersible wrist has a really fun Instagram presence where you're, you're highlighting, you know, just great wrist shots of cool watches on people doing really awesome stuff under and above the waves. And, uh, got some good merch coming out of that and. Yeah. Just a varied, interesting guy. And, and, you know, we've been able to go diving a few times together and that's been fun. And I just think, uh, you're, you're kind of a perfect fit for the TGN vibe here. So yeah. Did I miss anything? I'm sure there's plenty more. |
| Benjamin Lowry | That was great. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Good. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Well, I mean, I think the show is pretty much over. I think we're good. That's sort of the story. |
| James Stacey | All right. I love it. Quick edit for James. I love it. Let's go. Quick shout out, though, to Submersible Wrist. And we'll get to all the other things that you're into. And the most recent stuff with Watch of Espionage is very exciting. But a quick shout out to Submersible Wrist. I realized I didn't have... I couldn't wear my shirt as I wore it twice this weekend. The tie-dye shirt. Much appreciated. It's in the hard rotation. And then the more recent... What's the official name on the Sun shirt? |
| Benjamin Lowry | It's the SWDT1, obviously. |
| James Stacey | SWDT1, which I like quite a bit. Apologies, but I do have a lovely sticker that will soon find a home on my laptop with the rest of the collection. And yeah, I'm a big fan. And my daughters are real tie dye nerds and that they really like the that I have got a little bit of tie dye in the in the catalog. |
| Benjamin Lowry | It's real tie dye, too. That was it was a whole thing to get that shirt made. And I did that one in very much like the wrong all of the ways you can do a merch thing incorrectly. I did for that first shirt. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. We're good. We're good at doing merchant correctly sometimes as well. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. I mean, I, I did it like I said, I had a hundred of them and I sold them as though I had sold a hundred watches. It was like individual PayPal transactions where people messaged me their addresses and all that. So as a lesson to anybody listening, don't do that. Pay Shopify. Just don't do that. Wow. Wow. Good times though. And they're rare shirts. Now people, people hit me up all the time. Hey, check out, I'm wearing the shirt here, which is so cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that happens to us too. You know, you get people, they see stuff, they kind of missed out on the drop and then they're like, they come and say, where did those cool patches come from and those stickers? And you're like, oh, you know, maybe one day we'll bring them back. But yeah, the tie dyes were awesome. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. We're getting a lot of asks for patches actually. So that's probably something I need to sort of... Do it. Yeah, definitely. Some with a Velcro back would be fun, I think. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I guess we should do a little housekeeping before we dive into the meat of the show here, huh? |
| James Stacey | We've got... Yeah, because we've got some stuff coming up. So I can cover Toronto Time Pee Show. So Toronto Time Pee Show is coming up at the end of this month. But at this point, I think tickets are largely locked in. So if you're coming, we can't wait to see you. But we are hosting an event with Marathon Watches, an area about 15 minutes from the Toronto Time Pee Show. We've got a really cool kind of reconditioned fire hall that's been made available to us. We're going to have beer and wine and charcuterie and that sort of thing. The RSVP for that is already in the Slack. So if you're listening and you're a Slack user, You can absolutely jump into either meetups or TGN general chat and find the thread. Uh, we're already getting a good number of RSVPs. I'm really excited for, for that. We've also got some kind of like little surprises of people who will be there, people from within the TGN world. So if you'd love to meet a Mike Pearson or a Wesley Smith, uh, this is a great chance to do it. And we'll have a couple of nice hours hanging out there and it still leaves. We're going to be done by eight 30. So if you want to catch a late dinner at one of the great restaurants in Toronto, you definitely still can. Yeah. And other than that, we're going to do a live show on Saturday afternoon. And otherwise, I'm still kind of buttoning down other little fun things that might be going on. So stay tuned to the show. We have another guest next week, which is going to be exciting, but we'll have more updates for the show next week. And then Episode 300 will come out just the day before the show kind of kicks off on Friday, Saturday. And then yeah, and then it'll be the show. So that's that's what we're up to. By all means, you can either hit the show notes. If you're listening to this episode, this is episode 298. You can find the show notes for this episode in the feed and that'll have the link if you'd like to RSVP and you're not on the Slack. So that was a really complicated way of sharing an RSVP link. |
| Jason Heaton | It's great. Yeah. I can't wait to see everybody. I mean, this has been, this has been a great year for us. I mean, good meetups and yeah, exciting, big milestones and some cool, cool stuff. |
| James Stacey | I believe we have enough room and the right people. I've, I've located some really good beer. Uh, the folks from marathon are sorting out the wine. It's going to be great. Nice. Cool. And we'll have non-alcoholic beer as well. So come have one of those. |
| Jason Heaton | Very nice. Um, one more bit of housekeeping before we really get into the fun stuff today. Um, citizen that the TGN discount still live. We're just going to mention that ongoing because it's really cool. And a lot of people have been taking advantage of that. This is for citizens, us site only, unfortunately, but you know, plenty of our audiences in the U S if you put in the code, uh, gray, NATO, G R E Y N A T O. you can get an extra 10% off any pro master dive collection watch through the end of the year. So that's, that's really amazing. So the Fujitsu bow, um, you know, the, the, the new kind of Ecozilla, the Aqua lands, all that kind of stuff. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a neat thing. And you get that in addition to any existing discounts that are on the site. And as I said, a lot of people have taken advantage of that and, uh, it's, it's a good deal. So thanks to citizen for offering that up and, and go forth and, and get a citizen if you're into that. So, That's the news. All right. Maybe jump right into some risk check. I think, uh, Ben, you should get the honors of, of the first risk check, uh, offering today. What are you wearing? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Uh, Tudor Pelagos 39 today. A watch that I know both of, you know, James knows it well. You're more of an FXT guy, Jason, which is cool. It's fine. But I went 39 after a lot of deliberation right around the time that I left Teddy and came over to watches of espionage. You know, I think we all like to kind of commemorate life events or whatever with a watch and So for me, this is that one. And then I had it engraved with the submersible wrist logo, you know, perfect just to make it really hard to sell. Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. It's nice to have them engraved. I've got mine engraved as well. And it's a it's a good thing. I'm not wearing my thirty nine today. I wanted to pick what I felt was like the most the right watch for this for this conversation. And so I went with the diving star. I thought it fit the terms in the name. You're a diving star for sure. And I've had this essentially barely off my wrist. for... I don't know. I've had it for almost two weeks now, I guess. Wow. I've still got it on the bracelet, which is a remarkable thing for me. That is. As it turns out, I really like this bracelet. I don't like how shiny it is, so I am considering a Scotch-Brite. I know that upsets some people, but... I've done that. Yeah, yeah. This is a keeper. I'm not worried about flipping the Doxa. Got this from Rolldorf, so it came from a friend. If you're in the Canadian area and would like to buy from a Canadian dealer, there's a great option there with Rolldorf, and it was very easy to work with them, as always. But yeah, I'm kind of in love with the yellow. I'm enjoying the bracelet. It's got this very simple extension, arguably even easier than using TeeFit as you don't have to take the watch off. I've got it here next to the Monster, the Explorer, the Pelagos 39. They're just fun. I love this watch. I'm really happy with it. Good Labor Day cottage watch. Oh, for sure, yeah. Looked good in a bright blue kayak, the yellow. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was a good feeling. All right, what do you got, Jason? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I'm kind of following Ben's suit a little bit. I've got a Pelagos on, I've got my FXD, kind of commemorating in honor of Ben's presence here. We all were down in Florida for the launch of this watch, the Black Dial Pelagos FXD. And for a while after I got this, It, um, it rarely left my wrist. I mean, it was on for two months straight, I think. And then I sort of set it aside for a while as we do and, uh, have worn other stuff. But, uh, over the past week, I would say it's been kind of nonstop. If I'm not wearing a Garmin for, for other stuff, uh, this is what I'm wearing and mine's engraved as well. And it's, uh, it's one that's, that's never leaving. And, uh, it's super fun. And I think it kind of connects us all together from our wonderful trip last year. It was actually around this time. I'm pretty close. Yeah. So. |
| Unknown | Yeah, we were just in the ocean having a good time. |
| Benjamin Lowry | A rare James Stacy underwater sighting. Yeah. Too great. Yeah. That was a... Yeah. Never enough James Stacy underwater sightings. Yeah. So we got to keep working on that. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm looking at a quarry dive currently and trying to decide if I want to do it in a five mil or if I need to find a pool quickly or maybe run back up to the cottage and test out my older dry suit. We'll see. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Bring all the mills. That's what I always say. |
| James Stacey | I might just bring them all to the water and see what happens. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Bring all the mills. You never know. I mean, you know, it might be fine until 15 feet, and then you hit the thermocline, and then, yeah, your life is kind of over. |
| James Stacey | I guarantee you it's going to be freezing, but it'll be fun. We'll have a good time for sure. Look, Ben, I want to dive right into this. I'm actually super excited for this chat because, like Jason intimated at the top of the show, you're not only kind of part of the crew and really kind of get what we're after, but we get what you're into as well. I think there's a lot of just kind of fun synergy here. So I have a two-part origin story question. You can start with whichever one dovetailed into the other. Was it watches or diving first? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah, I guess kind of all together, which is the weirdest thing about my spiel, right? So growing up, you guys have met my dad. My dad's awesome. Greg Lowry, if you don't know him, good dude. But growing up, we had a lot of diving related books and stuff in the house and also a lot of watches and stuff in the house. And my dad's always been a big fan. He's not a diver himself, but he's always just been a huge fan of diving history all the way back to William Beebe in the 1920s with the Bathysphere, Cousteau, Sea Lab, U.S. Navy trials, all kinds of different stuff like that was laid out in books in an office in our home. So that was kind of laying around. And then he was also into watches. What I always tell people, he was never one to be like, you're my son and you will like watches, but they're there, you know? So I think it kind of happens by osmosis or whatever. So yeah, the books are laying around, you start reading the books, the watches are laying around, start looking at the watches. And then I think both of those things just planted a seed where I was interested in that type of stuff. I grew up in East central Illinois, so it's not like everybody was scuba diving or any other kind of diving. So yeah, that was, that's kind of where it all started. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Wow. Although having said that, I, I, I remember that Patty was actually founded in very close to probably where you grew up. Um, I think Patty originated in the late sixties in the Chicago area, if not Oak park. I think so. Yeah. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Oh wow. Yeah. If so, I did not know that. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. The guy that I bought the, not to go off on a tangent, that guy that I bought my T graph from, he grew up in Wisconsin and he, he has his original card and it had the, I think it was Oak park I believe for the Patty original founders signatures on it. |
| Unknown | So yeah, there's another bit of history for you to look into. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Cool. Yeah. No kidding. He's probably already on it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Okay. So you, you kind of grew up in that scene, uh, you know, seeing all this great diving history, memorabilia and the watches. And, um, so out of school you went into the coast guard. How did that come about and what was your trajectory or path there? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. I, uh, I moved from Champaign, which is kind of more like East central or Southern Illinois up to Chicago around the time of college and had a, just a wildly unsuccessful first attempt at undergraduate college. After that, I was like a bike shop kid. I worked in a bike shop for a few years and continued to read the Cousteau books, find the old episodes of his show on YouTube, read more about Sea Lab, read Ben Hallworth's book about Sea Lab, and was just very interested in the maritime world. I didn't grow up a strong swimmer or anything like that, so diving didn't feel like the natural first step. Yeah, so basically did some research looked into joining the military. My dad had been army and his only advice was not to join the army. Roger that, dad. So did not join the army, looked up the Coast Guard. It seemed like a good deal. This is 2010 or 2011, I think it was. So there was some very serious military actions going on around the world. And, you know, basically just the way that I did the math, I would wanted to dedicate myself more to the potential to rescue people, help people in harm's way, and also to remain closer to home. So picked the Coast Guard, And it was a remarkably quick process in those days. I think I took whatever the testing was and only a few months later, they sent me to bootcamp, which is in Cape May, New Jersey. And then relatively quickly from there to San Francisco, California, which was my first duty station. |
| Jason Heaton | And what was your, what was your specific role, um, or rank or, or, you know, or did it change? I'm sure it changed over time as well, right? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. So I spent all four of my years at the same unit, a place called station San Francisco, which is a small boat station dedicated to search and rescue and law enforcement. So when you kind of get there as a new guy, you become a crew member on the small boats first, which means you can kind of help out with all of the different search and rescue cases or law enforcement situations. And then I got promoted a couple of times, became a petty officer. At that point, you are able to become trained in the actual operation of the boat. It's what we call a coxswain, hilarious name, many jokes, but that's what it's called. And so then you're the guy driving the boat. Who's also kind of has operational control of whatever the particular mission is. that was how I sort of closed out my career there was driving the boat and being in charge of those search and rescue missions. |
| Jason Heaton | Presumably you enjoyed your time there. I've heard you talk fondly about your time in the Coast Guard. Was it a good experience? I mean, all in all? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Had a blast. No complaints. I mean, you know, your job is they're like, all right, you are now forced to live in San Francisco and you're like, all right, cool. And then they're like, here's this boat You know, this 800 horsepower boat or whatever, this 500 horsepower boat. That's your boat today. Go do Coast Guard things. Wow. So, I mean, it was, you know, I was 24 maybe at the time. So I absolutely live in the dream. No complaints. |
| Jason Heaton | And then from there you moved into another very niche, uh, world. Um, did you go directly into commercial diving from the Coast Guard or were you kind of wander the wilderness a bit after that? |
| Benjamin Lowry | I've done plenty of, uh, wilderness wandering. That's fair to say. |
| James Stacey | You can't make a good decision without some wandering. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Well, I mean, I, I don't like to make it a good decision until I've made several bad ones first. That's sort of my, uh, that's my lifestyle. |
| Jason Heaton | There's your final, there's your quote for the day. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yes. We'll save that for the end. It was actually on a coast guard case that I kind of figured out a little bit more about what commercial diving was. I had some clue from reading all the books that I'd read, but most of what my dad had laying around was very much. Underwater cinematography on behalf of the Cousteau team on the Calypso, or it was SEALAB, and for the vast majority of SEALAB, we're talking about scuba-related apparatus as opposed to surface supply. So I had some baseline idea of wearing a helmet and doing commercial-type diving, but I had never really encountered it firsthand. So there was a particular search and rescue case where a barge that had a number of working divers on it, it was a relatively small barge, it was maybe 50 by 25 or something, just a floating concrete rectangle is essentially what that looks like for those who don't know. And it had been the subject, the victim, if you will, of a wake from a ferry that was transiting San Francisco Bay and just essentially threw a bunch of water over the top of this barge and moved a bunch of equipment around. And they had a diver in the water at the time and they're all upset. So they called the Coast Guard. We went out there. Obviously, there's nothing we can do except take a bunch of statements. But I got there and I was in charge of the case and I'm looking out and there's a guy who's like in the middle of taking his helmet off or handing it off to a tender or whatever. And at the time I was just kind of like, what do you, what do you guys, what is, what is this? What are you guys doing? |
| Unknown | You know what I mean? |
| Benjamin Lowry | And this guy who I remember vividly looked exactly the way that you want him to look. He was probably, you know, I don't know. Old for a diver, mid fifties, like mustache. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Benjamin Lowry | It's felt like he had had something to drink the night before. I'm going to throw all the stereotypes out, but the guy took a good amount of time and was like, this is how this works. You know, if you want to do something like this, there are trade schools for this. You get a certification. Then you can kind of ascend, or if you want to descend through the diving industry. And then after that, I was pretty much sold. So I knew I was probably getting out at that point anyway, and located a commercial diving program down in Santa Barbara, which is, you know, some hours South of the San Francisco area and moved there just a couple of months after I got out of the Coast Guard. |
| Jason Heaton | Wow. You know, you've, you've talked about, um, I remember the first time we dove together, which was the wind up in the lake a couple of years ago. Um, you were joking how. You know, you're more used to not having to worry about buoyancy. You know, you're used to, you're in that world, you're, you're focused on kind of walking around on the bottom with a, with a helmet on. And, uh, so it's just such a different world from scuba diving. And I think that's something that a lot of people, you know, the watch enthusiasts or, or kind of casual divers kind of assume that a hard hat diver is akin to, to kind of scuba diving, but it's, it's entirely different, isn't it? I mean, is, had you, you hadn't done any scuba diving with scuba diving, part of the training for the commercial diving at all? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah, so what's interesting about how the program works, and there are different ones, but the one that I did was set up as essentially two semesters at a community college called Santa Barbara City College, which is most definitely one of the better places to learn about commercial diving in the United States. But the way that it worked, if I remember correctly, they required you to have your like basic open water scuba certification just to go. And I think they did that mostly to make sure that people could clear their ears and that people were not The type of people who are going to immediately freak out upon getting in the water. So you had to have like the basic card to attend the program and the program. It was nine months long and it kicked off with, I think maybe three or four months of just purely scuba diving. So you got a big stack of scuba certs and cards and stuff off the bat. And I, and again, I think that was to kind of build confidence in the water to make sure that people felt comfortable and to kind of weed out anyone who was going to, for lack of a better word, freak out when the going gets tough underwater. So. There's a pretty comprehensive swim test. This is a funny story. I like to tell because I did not grow up a swimmer. Uh, the coast guard forced me to be a swimmer enough to not, you know, drown, but it was not, the coast guard is not training Michael Phelps is at least not when I was there. So I was capable of swimming, but the swim test being required by the school was very much, it was, I think it was like an old 1960s Navy swim test. Cause a number of veterans helped to set up the commercial diving program that I was in. So they just recycled whatever old Navy test and it was, significant enough that I had to, uh, literally like go to YouTube and be like, how do I tread water, you know, and all that good stuff and try to like prepare for it at the local Y. And even on the day I was like, you know, it's like, there's a non-zero chance I don't pass this test. And I think like over half the people that tried it did not. So it was kind of a serious thing. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Wow. Geez. And that was for the Coast Guard or that was the commercial diving schools test. |
| Benjamin Lowry | That was the commercial diving. I think I'm trying to think of exactly what it was in the Coast Guard, but it was very much like, The coast guards swimming requirements, and I'm probably going to get this wrong, but the coast guard swimming requirements at the time were very much oriented around the idea of I have fallen off of a boat. Okay. So it's like, can you tread water for 10 minutes without dying? Can you swim some nominal distance again without dying? It was definitely not about going faster, doing laps for time or all the techniques were how to survive essentially. Whereas the commercial diving school test was like, you actually have to know how to swim and |
| Jason Heaton | You know, for, for those unfamiliar or, or maybe marginally familiar with commercial diving, a lot of people think about. Saturation diving, you know, living hundreds of feet underwater and a habitat for weeks on end. There's a very different side of commercial diving that you've experienced as well. Right. Um, the, the less glamorous, if you will, that side of it, not glamorous at all. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. I mean, I, I, number one, not nearly as cool as sat divers, sat divers are awesome. Shout out to you guys. Uh, Paul Schofield is a great example. Who's also in our community. Yeah. |
| Unknown | Big watch guy. Yeah. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. He's the man. But, uh, that's the pointy end of the spear for the diving industry. Um, I guess the short version to compare scuba to commercial diving scuba divers have a tank on their back. They are limited in their amount of time they can spend underwater by whatever's in the tank. And they are free swimming. They're not attached to anything. They can go wherever they want to go. Whereas commercial diving in general, at least in North America is almost always carried out with surface supplied diving, where there's a hose rigidly connecting the diver to the surface. And you wear a helmet as opposed to just like a regulator that you bite in your mouth. So it's a little bit safer in that if you have some kind of a problem, they'll just keep pumping gas down to you until your problem can be figured out, hopefully. So that's kind of the big difference in, in the modes of diving. But, uh, yeah, so the, the work that I ended up ultimately doing was in inland commercial diving or inshore commercial diving, as it's often called, as opposed to offshore commercial diving, which would be your. Oil platforms, uh, a lot of it's oil related wind farms, just large underwater construction scale projects. Whereas inland is a lot of maintenance on water intake systems for fresh water, paper mills, nuclear plants. I mean, lakes, rivers, streams, dams, bridge abutments, anything that you can imagine in an inland setting. So it's typically shallower, way less sexy, not as much money. And, uh, and yeah, so that, those are some, those are some of the differences, but, uh, I've spent as much time five feet underwater as I have deeper, you know, it's just, that's a big part of it. Oh, that's great. |
| Jason Heaton | And were you wearing a watch at this time? Was that part of your, your life, your kit that you were, you were wearing a watch? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, and we'll just get this out there upfront. 100% didn't need to in commercial diving. You're every, all of everything timing wise is managed by a supervisor or a team of people on the surface. The diver is essentially, and I'm going to offend some divers here, including myself, but you're kind of like a tool on the end of a string. Like they, they lower you down there. You have a specific job to do. And that goes all the way down to having a helmet and a light on top of your hat, and they're watching the things that you're doing. And sometimes it's as granular as, take your right hand, grab this thing, turn it, you know what I mean? |
| James Stacey | It can get really... Oh, so you mean there's a camera as well? I could see that being quite powerful. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah, it's great. So you can have... If you're messing with something that's expensive or important underwater, which a lot of things are, like an oil pipeline or whatever, they can have a team of engineers up there saying, You know, that bolt gets torqued to this back or whatever, don't touch that with this. So that's a part of it as well. |
| Jason Heaton | And how many years did you do that? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Not even two years. So one issue that I had with that, I mean, awesome industry it's it's, and to throw this out there for anybody looking for something to do, you can make a lot of money doing it, which is great, but you have to be ready to be away from home a lot. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Benjamin Lowry | I think in the first year that I was in it, I was gone maybe 10 months or so. |
| Unknown | Oh, wow. |
| Benjamin Lowry | And I came into the industry right after my twins were born. And it was kind of, it was just kind of like decision times. Like I was, I was getting better dives. I was making more money. All those things were working out great, but it was kind of like, I wasn't seeing my kids. And ultimately that was a choice I had to make. |
| Jason Heaton | You took a very different turn after that. Right. I just rewinding the tape in my brain from where I've observed you going, was that around the time you decided you were going to go back to school for, was it luxury industry marketing or something like that? Isn't that where you headed next? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah, more or less. So I had already started to make the story even more complicated. There was kind of a break between when I finished dive school and when I got into the industry where I finished my undergrad, which I had kind of hanging out. So I knocked that out basically because right when I finished dive school, oil was down, it was cheaper, there weren't a lot of good jobs, and I didn't want to move to Louisiana, no offense to Louisiana, but I wasn't ready to kind of go that direction with my life. So I went and finished my bachelor's, which was awesome. And then of course, right after you finish your bachelor's and you think you're going to get a more traditional job, you know, the diving was the best offer that I got. So I jumped into that at that point. But yeah, after a couple of years of that, it was time to do something else. So I found a program and it was, it's called global luxury and management or glam. And I am, I am making fun of myself while I say this, but cause that's important, but it's basically like an MBA style program that you do. in two parts. And one of the parts is in the United States, in this case at NC state in North Carolina. And then the other part was at a Parisian business school in Paris, France. So it's like a semester in each place. And then you write this big dissertation and, but yeah, that was essentially the next step. |
| Jason Heaton | Did you move in that direction? Because during all of this time that you were into diving and that, that phase of your career, you had taken a greater interest in watches and you were, you were, had an aim of kind of making that, of your life kind of getting into that industry? Is that why you pursued that? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah, absolutely. It was all about watches. I didn't, I didn't, uh, didn't go that route hoping to do whatever textiles or jewelry or fashion or, which is why most of the people in the program were in the program. But I had gotten into writing about watches a bit first as an intern and then later like kind of piecemeal freelance for a blog to watch, which is a platform we all know James knows and loves. I'm sure. |
| Unknown | Yeah. Heck yeah. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Everyone's got to do their A, B, T, W time, I think. At least at that time, that was how it was. |
| James Stacey | I still think they're cranking out some great work. And certainly, I think it's where... What year would that have been when you were starting to write for A, B, T, W? |
| Benjamin Lowry | 16, 17, maybe. Something like that. |
| James Stacey | I mean, a great era to get into watches and to start writing about them and that sort of thing. There was lots going on, lots of attention, pre-pandemic, all that kind of stuff. And they remain a great team. So a nice group of people to work with. |
| Benjamin Lowry | I agree. And they were awesome. And they were, and the, you know, it's like when you're brand new, whether you're able to write or not able to write or working on your writing or looking for kind of the color that you're going to add to whatever stories you're going to tell, you need a platform, right? Cause there's, there's just no other way to do it. It's hard to just post by yourself on your own stuff and hope to get anywhere with it. So they were super cool. And it started off as it always does with, you know, you can write up this release of a Ulysse Nardin from, you know, Basel world at the time, I guess it still was. You know, so write that up, have that ready in an hour, we're going to publish it at seven. And so it started with some of that type of work, which I know we've all done and then transitioned more into that. Yeah, that's exactly, you know, better than most. And then eventually it was like, okay, write these things based on your experience. Having at that time, I hadn't worked as a diver, but I had gone to dive school. So it was kind of like, give us that context and perspective. |
| James Stacey | And I'm curious, going through the whole process of becoming a commercial diver, I guess it's a two part question. One, did you find yourself that you immediately enjoyed scuba diving or was it more like a bridge to get to this job and it became ancillary? And then on the other side of it, was it a hard thing? How hard was the decision to give it up? Obviously, maybe it's easy. I've made lots of decisions for my family and you can be very resolute in Easy decision, you have to make it, but you can still in the back of your mind go like, I did actually really like being underwater 10 months of the year, like you can kind of live in both spaces. And I was curious, like what was it like making that decision and then trying to find a plan which like might be the hardest 180, a commercial diver to, you know, like a genuinely educated position in like, you know, Jason and I exist in the world of luxury watches almost by happenstance without education. Um, and so I think like that takes a lot of intent to make all that, that series of decisions. What was that like process like for you at the time in your family? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Uh, first I would say never let them know your next move. Right. So that's, that's the actual, that's the mantra. But, uh, yeah, so I guess to answer the first part of your question, first scuba diving for me was always a means to an end. And I mean, anyone who's gone diving with me since knows that I make fun of scuba diving when I can, even though I of course love scuba diving as well. But for me at the time, it was like, scuba diving is for nerds. I want to be one of these, you know, super cool, tough guys wearing a helmet and all that stuff. So for the first few months of scuba diving, I don't know that I would say that I took to it naturally because I did not have a ton of experience being uncomfortable underwater, which is what a lot of diving is about. But I was willing to kind of take my knocks and, you know, maybe almost drown a few times to get to where I wanted to be. Which was key. And then, yeah, you essentially after you've made the transition from the scuba stuff to training with the hard hat, you never go back to scuba in the world of commercial. So that was kind of for some years, didn't go scuba diving, didn't think about scuba diving, didn't want to go scuba diving or any of that stuff because I was just fully diving commercial. And then to get to the second part of your question. Oh, super hard. I mean, making making that 180, if you want to call it that, that making that turn was a huge deal, because in some ways this was in my life, a goal that I'd laid out much earlier. And worked hard to attain, I mean, essentially figured out how to swim to attain this goal, survived commercial diving school, which I think had like a 50% dropout rate or something, which is crazy because people pay for it. Right. And they still quit, but yeah, so it was got through the diving school finally got the job in diving. It was, you know, inland diving jobs are what they are, but you know, a lot of it for lack of a better word sucked and was super hard work. And the typical schedule is seven, 12 hour shifts a week. So it's, you know, It's a difficult line of work for sure. But having said that, enjoyed it very much. And some of the projects that I got to work on, I was a part of the first saturation dive in the Great Lakes on a commercial company's behalf. I wasn't in the water, but I was there. And, you know, Straits of Mackinac, deeper water, dive in gas was kind of how I finished my career. Only got to do that a couple times, but still like very cool stuff. That was the part of the reasons that I got into it in the first place. So yes, hard pivot, but, uh, If that's what it takes to be there to see my kids grow up, you do what you got to do. |
| Jason Heaton | It lent you a level of knowledge and expertise that has continued to serve you well in all that you're doing now, whether it's submersible wrist, you have some authority when it comes to talking and writing and posting and et cetera, about all of this stuff. And to that point, I'll just throw out a thanks to you for your help with my research for my, my last novel, Sweetwater, where, you know, you had a big, big role in input on one of the chapters for that book. And, um, I guess I have a bit of a side question as you were talking, I was thinking you posted something recently on submersible wrist of a guy wearing one of your, um, your sun shirts and he had a diving helmet on, and then I believe he had tanks on his back. And that surprised me. I always consider. Hard hat diving, always umbilical tethered, you know, you can do scuba with a helmet. Is that correct? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Absolutely. Yeah. So the, the way it's meant to work with any kind of hard hat, it's an umbilical surface supplied focused mode of diving, but all of these hard hats by law have to also be connected to a smaller tank, which the Navy calls a EGS or emergency gas supply in the commercial world tends to call a bailout bottle. So if you somehow lost your primary source of gas through your umbilical, you can turn a knob on your head. And get access to the emergency gas in the bottle. Of course, they're not huge bottles and they, how big they have to be varies with the depth that you're working and so on. And they have to match the gas mix of whatever you're getting from your umbilical. So it's kind of another thing you have to take care of. But what that means is that it is possible to directly connect a tank to the hat. If that's how you'd like to dive. I don't think anybody would recommend that, but, uh, the guy, the guy in question is a friend of mine, David. Uh, friend of submersible wrist, whatever submersible wrist is for the last few years, a good dude is a commercial guy up in Canada. And he owns that hat. It's a Miller 400 suit. I mean, divers know super rare, very cool brass old school take on a modern super light style diving helmet. So yeah, they're awesome photos. But yes, you, you theoretically can do that. I don't know that anybody would recommend it, but you theoretically can do that. And the reasons are that it's a hat, so it's got a larger gas volume inside of it. So it can go through a tank pretty quickly. I think David may have been as much as anything Grabbing some cool photos for me rather than hoping to explore the murky depths of Vancouver or wherever he's at, you know? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Right. Right. It makes me think of the deepest breath, um, or sorry, the last breath that film. I'm sure you've seen it, right. About that one hits hard. Yeah. His bailout bottle. Um, yeah. So, you know, you talked about submersible wrist and, and how did that come about? That's been a really cool project for you. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah, so I would relate it to the heartache that I just mentioned as I left the world of diving. And basically, I was keeping in touch with all the people that I had worked with in diving, I'm getting texts of them or whatever. And I think they treated me sort of as an oddity while I was in the career field anyways, because I would, I would wear a watch. And like, I kind of had an idea that maybe it would be cool to make content about this or have some type of media that was informed by these experiences, even then. So yes, basically, when I got out of the industry, It was a way for me to remain connected in a small way. And I was looking for these kind of, you know, watch spotting type shots anyways, just for fun, whether it was just to legitimize watches that I thought were cool or whatever. So I had kind of a backlog of those going back till, I mean, honestly, I had a folder on a gateway computer in 2007 or eight or something where I started compiling shout out gateway with like the cow spots on it or whatever. So I had a bunch of that stuff saved up and was just always like, what do you do with this? And yeah, so I started posting it, kind of tried to make it a combination of like, here's some experiences I had diving. Here's some cool watch spotting photos and just a place where people who appreciated either diving or dive watches or some combination of the two could connect and hang out. And, and yeah, it's become a little bit of a community and it's been really cool so far. |
| Jason Heaton | And I find it refreshing because nowadays I feel like my Instagram feed is flooded with watch spotting of a very different sort. It's like celebrity watch spotting, you know, here's Timothy Chalamet with his Cartier on the red carpet or, you know, the guys that, you know, premieres and events in the U S open wearing this and that, you know, they've just been given that watch by a PR person to wear. And it gets a little bit eye rolling. And so I always love to flip through and find some merciful wrist and there's some, you know, mustachioed Navy seal wearing a Seiko 6309 or something. And it's a, it's a good, a good antidote. |
| Benjamin Lowry | I agree. I think all of our like watch styling preferences, at least mine, you know, should be informed by that. Like, you know, if, if it's good enough for those guys, chances are, it's good enough for the rest of us working at our desks. Right. So I, I look at dive watches in a lot of times people say, Oh, that's a super legit dive watch. It's this, it's that. And it's like, man, I've seen a lot of pictures at this point and I've never seen that one. You know what I mean? There's obviously a variety of reasons why that could happen, but. Yeah, I see it as a way of kind of legitimizing the stuff and then also creating that more ancillary culture around dive watches, right? Because there are certain names, 6309 is a good one, Tudor Submariner, whatever. There's names that come up again and again, no matter where you look. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Did submersible wrist and schooling overlap? It sounds like they probably came at roughly the same time when you were exiting the commercial world. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. So after I got my, again, this is hard to say, but my luxury education, I ended up finding my way into an internship with Louis Vuitton. Uh, I graduated that program, or at least I finished the being in class portion of that program in February of 2020. And we all know what happened then. So we'd all, we'd all been promised amazing internships and this was going to happen and that was going to happen. And then all the brands kind of contracted immediately. And we're like, you know, sorry, bro. Let us know after the world figures this out. And, uh, yeah. So I went home to the United States, which was North Carolina at the time where my family was from France, I got a strongly worded email from the department of state right around that time that said like, you will leave France and go back where you came from in the next 24 to 48 hours or risk having your passport rejected at the border or something like that, which is pretty hardcore. |
| James Stacey | So, uh, nice of them to send a letter though. Canada would just turn you away. |
| Benjamin Lowry | An email, like what if I hadn't checked my email? You know what I mean? But I guess they figured it would be fine. So yeah, packed up everything where I was staying there and came to, came back and And was essentially just kind of sitting around and thinking like, man, what are we going to do now? And I was even, I had already got in touch with my diving company and they were like, well, you can always come back. And I was like, bro, like I did this whole thing to not come back. No offense. You know what I mean? So that wasn't the goal. Yeah. And then out of the ether, uh, Louis Vuitton reached out essentially like while we were doing one of the things we were doing in France, we met with Anthony LeDrew who was then I think in charge of Tiffany. He's since moved on somewhere else. He's a big luxury figure, but he attended the same school that I had gone to. And every once in a while he would you know, reach down from the precipice that he lives on and like grab a couple of lost souls and throw them into internships. So they said, Hey, if you'd like to move to the Miami area, we have this gig for you down there where you can do retail operations with the brand. And I, I having no other choices besides getting back in the water was like, heck yeah, let's go. So we, uh, yeah, took the whole family and moved down there and did the Louis Vuitton thing for a while. |
| James Stacey | And what would you say were your major takeaways from that experience? Because how long was it before Teddy came along? |
| Benjamin Lowry | I guess it was a bit over a year. So it was an internship that lasted a few months, and then they offered me a job, which I took. And it was like retail operate. It was back of house, problem solving, warehousing, inventory, shipping. Logistics. Yeah, which was absolutely fine. But oftentimes what that looked like was being in the back of a store at a mall, which is probably not why most people pursue luxury as a career field. Those things have to happen. I have the utmost respect, but it wasn't what I had in mind, I guess, is what I would say. And yeah, while working there, I think it was LinkedIn where Teddy just again from the ether was just like, hey, man, would you ever consider working with us with this YouTube stuff? And I was like, oh, I guess I would. Sure. You know, and then, yeah, rolled the dice in that direction. |
| James Stacey | Another great team as well. To be clear, I'm sure we've got a handful of listeners from Teddy and his team and certainly Danny's there now. And they've just been doing really incredible work, including, you know, the, the videos and stuff they were cranking out while you were involved. What, what I get, well, I mean, I asked what the takeaways were from, from the time with LV. So let's do that. And then, you know, what, what, what would you say, where did you, where'd you find yourself after some time with Teddy, like being properly in a sort of, again, back into like a watch media side rather than something more on the brand side, maybe. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. Um, I would say, I mean, Louis Vuitton, one of the largest luxury conglomerates on earth, a massive company, no matter how you slice it, humongous French influence organizationally and culturally. And I think if anything, like it's, it's peak COVID one of the places that I worked was still the back of a mall again. And the mall was still running cause it's Florida and they didn't believe in COVID or whatever. So they, we all had to wear masks, but it was still kind of business as usual. They limited how many people came into the store. And if you were in the store, you had to be with a client advisor and they had more rules certainly. But, uh, I mean, I know some people lost a lot of money during COVID, but whoever was in there was doing absolutely fine. I was just astonished. I mean, I guess a major takeaway was just what luxury is at the ground level. And it's a store making, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of it in cash a day, you know what I mean? And that's one store from this massive organization that also contains all these other brands, of course. So it was kind of cool. It was cool to see like a, it almost in a way felt like militaristic again, because there were all these tiers to the organization. It was very traditional. Nothing happened without approval from France, et cetera. So yeah, just a massive well-oiled old heritage oriented luxury machine. |
| James Stacey | Okay. And then, uh, the move for Teddy is, did you actually physically move the family to Ohio for that? |
| Benjamin Lowry | I did. Yeah. So, I mean, we were kind of happy to leave Florida anyways, just hotter than we prefer. Sure. So the opportunity came about to end up in Cleveland, which is cool, which is where the Teddy team was at. I think I was the third employee. So it was very early times at Teddy. |
| Unknown | Wow. |
| Benjamin Lowry | And yeah, it was basically my job at first was kind of working with Teddy to craft the scripts that he would end up reading to camera as he was making these YouTube videos. And I think we made maybe five or 600 of them together, which was very cool. And my role ended up being kind of part writing and then also part just helping with the video production process, managing the editors. helping the photo team out. They have an incredible photo team. Yeah. So those are some of the takeaways there. So it was like humongous, large luxury organization with, you know, rules and processes and a chain of command. And then it was just kind of like a few dudes just trying to make things happen on YouTube and elsewhere on the watch media side. So again, another kind of glaring contrast. |
| Jason Heaton | And then the migration to watches of espionage. I'm not sure if we're following the timeline perfectly here, but you know, that's, it's been an interesting and meteoric rise for WOE that so many of us have loved to watch and be a part of. And the guy who started this, we've all met him. Let's just put it out there. And he's a great guy. He's very concerned and rightly so about his privacy and maintains an anonymity. And so what was that like to go on board there? I'm guessing you're maybe employee number, I guess, two in that regard. And how did that come about? |
| Benjamin Lowry | I can either confirm or deny that. |
| Unknown | If you can talk about it. |
| James Stacey | Okay, let's put the voice filter on and blur out the camera. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah, exactly. If you could blur my face, yeah, that would all be great. Yeah. Yeah, jokes aside, I think, so that all happened very organically via Instagram again. So having, you know, he does a lot of kind of watch spotting type content and he has for a long time. So do I, so do a few other people. And we would just always communicate. I would say, Hey, like I found this super cool shot of whatever. special forces guy in Vietnam. I don't typically post that stuff because I really try hard to make my page about diving dive watches. So if you're not in dive gear or you're not wearing a dive watch, I can't help you. If it's a GMT master, we can have an argument, but you know what I mean? So I, I would send him a lot of that stuff now. And then he would throw me something and we just communicated a lot there. And then, yeah, it was basically like, Hey man, coming from WOE, he's saying like, Hey, you know, I'm looking to make this more of a thing to make this more of a real business, to create more content. to develop more products, you know, would you ever consider? And so we talked about it for a while. And yeah, there came a time where it was, you know, jumping with both feet, which I did. And I think that's coming up on six months ago now, which is pretty cool. |
| James Stacey | Wow. Yeah. And I mean, I would say that the interesting thing about that is a lot of his content has the feel of something from 2008, 2009, like a proper blog. one guy's perspective, everyone, you know, you kind of know the exact delivery after you've read four or five of his stories. And to see that expand, I think is really exciting for Jason. I, we adore small media products. Just it's, it's the best part of the internet. Still. We like being a small media product and we like operating with a small team where you kind of know what to expect. It's, it's always a lot of fun that way. In my mind, when, when I heard that you were moving over to watch the vestments, I was like, that's kind of an interesting like tasks to navigate because you have to respect the voice, which kind of comes out of the ether of the, you know, the opposite community. But at the same time, you have a watch perspective and a watch personality and a history in, you know, diving and watch appreciation. That's entirely different than somebody who was a, you know, a field officer. How do you, how did you guys sit down and go like, well, this is how the pie will kind of get cut up in terms of how we do things. |
| Benjamin Lowry | I would say, I mean, we're still cutting up the pie, I think. I mean, we're kind of learning as we go. I think one thing that's always important about WOE for us is we don't want it to be about a single guy. To your point, like, definitely. Like, especially the first few dozen articles are from a guy, and they very much have his voice. People know the voice. I think they appreciate his insights and point of view and experience. But our goal is to make it something that is not, for lack of a better term, like influencer-driven. |
| James Stacey | Or specifically tied to a single personality. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah, exactly. Like there's only so many stories one guy can tell, right? So as we make this thing a bigger thing, we just like to keep it open. That's why we do so many different guest articles from different interesting people within the community. And yeah, we just kind of want to make it about the intersection of watches, the military, national security, intel, whatever, rather than, you know, this is a blog from one guy about one guy. And I think that was part of bringing me on board too, is, you know, he, has vast experience in the world of intelligence and certainly extremely passionate about watches. He's a big TGN fan as well, has been for a long time, but less experience in the traditional watch media. You know, he's written zero press releases about the new complicated skeletonized Ulysse Nardin that just came out, right? Which is a good thing for him. We all know that. So yeah, I think he just knew that to get into this space more deeply, he would need other voices and other kind of tones and points of view and And I, having been, somebody will get mad that I'm calling the Coast Guard military, but it is. And, uh, yeah, so having me there means that I can communicate with some of those people. Certainly I don't go to a Navy SEAL and talk to them. Like I'm one of them. Cause I am the very farthest thing from, but I at least speak some of the same language, which can bridge the gap for people that are a little bit apprehensive about talking about themselves, which is not rare in that community. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. I'll be honest, you know, when WOE really kind of caught fire and took off, I thought, how? is this going to burn really bright for a very short period of time? Because it just felt like how much, how much is out there really in the subject matter area that can, that can go on for months and years. And, and lo and behold, it has. And now I'm realizing how ripe for plucking this content is in the world these days. I mean, you've got these stories just keep coming up, whether it's analyzing the time of day shown on, you know, Vladimir Putin's watch or something going on in Ukraine or, or some analysis of, I mean, And there's also this fine line that's, that's being tread where it's very, I don't, I don't know what the word is. I don't want to say nonpartisan, but it's very like neutral. And the, the disclaimer is always, you know, we aren't taking sides here. We're just presenting this in a very neutral way. And I find that really, really compelling and really interesting. It just keeps it so fresh and exciting every week when that comes out. |
| Benjamin Lowry | I agree. I think being apolitical is one of the best things that we do. And it's something that's pretty important to us. I mean, The internet is the internet, right? And it can become very, very yucky, very fast if you take any stance of any kind. Right. |
| James Stacey | So Jason and I don't go on the real internet. We just hang out on the Slack. |
| Benjamin Lowry | You shouldn't. Don't do it. |
| James Stacey | It's scary. |
| Benjamin Lowry | And that's it. So we, it, we, we show you a picture. Here's a guy, he's wearing a watch. This is, here's why the guy's important. Here's why the watch is interesting. And then WOE can present his, here are my takeaways based on my experience as a case officer. And it's that. And then we just stop. You know what I mean? We don't then go like, well, clearly they're making too much money or whatever. And that's where, you know, it can get super ugly with that type of stuff. So yeah, we exist in a way that we can comment on political managers, but not in a way where we're, you know, climbing onto one side of the fence or the other. |
| Jason Heaton | And now you've got a video channel on YouTube, which is really exciting. And the first one was the Breitling one. Was that heavy, heavy with your involvement? |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. So that's, I think, Given my background at Teddy, that was one of the major reasons that I came across was to kind of help stand up video. And I think, you know, speaking of the two of us kind of sitting there talking to each other about how do we do this? How do we cut up the pie? What does it look like? We knew that video could be a big thing. I mean, whether we like it or not, there's a humongous portion of the audience that either can't or won't read a long form thing, or at least won't read it beyond the headline or read it with any depth. But you can capture that audience Perhaps more effectively in many cases with video and get a younger audience and all these other things, right? So we knew that we needed to do it, but the boss is anonymous, right? So it's a little bit conceptually challenging. There's plenty of faceless videos on YouTube, but I think a lot of them objectively kind of suck or feel cheap. So there was a lengthy period of development. We've been working on video for quite a while. We just put out the first one a couple of weeks ago. The response has been amazing. We're stoked about it. But it was a little bit of a, of a ride to get there. So it's kind of like, whose voice do we listen to? Um, what are we actually showing on screen? Which articles make sense and sort of that type of stuff. So we hope to number one, take some of our more popular pieces of editorial long form content and sort of transform them into these videos. And then also find new things that might just suit video better than editorial and then also put those up. So yeah. Have you guys seen the video? |
| James Stacey | Oh yeah. Yeah. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | That's great. For everybody listening, both the link to the YouTube channel and the link to the specific video, which is called Sketchy Dudes Wear Breitling, We Don't Make the Rules. Both of those will be in the show notes. I thought the video was really fun. I love that it seems to have gotten a huge amount of traction. You guys had 90,000 views as we're recording this. Who knows, maybe triple digits by the time this episode comes out. You never know. And a good number of followers as well. I'm really excited to see where the channel goes. But I am also interested, you know, Jason and I talk about this a lot. Obviously, there's a huge amount of scrutiny on the internet as to any moves made in and out of an editorial team. It could be in watches, it could be in automotive. Media is in huge amounts of upheaval now with some changes of personalities and where they all work. And I think it's always interesting, less so when someone goes somewhere new, not so much what they're doing, but what the goal is of what they're doing. And I'm curious, like, what is the sort of team goal for the next phase, season or two for Watches of Espionage. I'd love to know because like Keaton and I talk about this a lot. We don't focus on growth. We try and focus on depth. But what does that actually mean when you actually go to make something or put something on the internet? And it feels like if you're expanding into YouTube, that it's a growth play of some sort, but also keeping a team small and sharp, keeping your leader anonymous. Those are not generally seen as like normal growth tactics. What's sort of the plan, if you will? |
| Benjamin Lowry | I fully agree. I think that any marketing executive with a deep education on how to grow businesses would probably yell at us and say we're doing everything wrong, right? But yeah, I mean, we look at it first as like, let's make things that we would personally think are cool. Put those things out there. If people dig it and the thing grows, awesome. But it also doesn't necessarily have to, you know, like we've reached a great level, everybody's happy. The video is like, him and I sitting around saying, wouldn't it be cool if you could experience these types of stories in videos? We'd like to watch them. So we tried to set out to build something that we would actually want to see. I mean, the broader goal, I think, is to, you know, find more cool stories to tell, tell them in engaging ways, continue to shine a light on, you know, the veteran community, the intelligence community, which are groups that are not always getting a lot of shine, especially as it relates to the luxury community, which watchmaking has no choice but to be a part of. So, yeah, it's bringing some of that to what we're doing. Growing the YouTube is probably the first big goal that I've been associated with, but also the development of a lot of products. So if anybody's wondering what to get out of this chat, please go check out the YouTube. We're super proud of it. And then also we have some very cool products coming, one of which I am allowed to talk about for the first time in this very chat. |
| James Stacey | Please do. TGN exclusive. Yeah. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yes, exactly. And then this, this whole section of the podcast, we'll just say redacted on screen and it'll all be bleeped out. |
| James Stacey | Three and a half minute long single tone, like when you fall asleep watching the TV. Nobody does that anymore. Why did I make that reference? |
| Benjamin Lowry | It was awesome. People don't know what that is, but yes, I know what it is. So a product, it was actually something I was kind of playing around with before I came over to WOE was the idea of a wrist compass. So these compasses that go on a watch strap, we've all seen them. If you do watch spotting to any degree, if you've seen WOE's page or my page or any of the other watch spotting pages, and you look at sort of that golden era of tool dive watches, the Rolex Mariner, Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, maybe a Zodiac, Seawolf, Seiko stuff. Very, very often, especially in Vietnam, is that going to be oriented along with a wrist compass? There are some out there. There are some out there that are pretty good, but we thought that maybe we could make one that was better or more interesting or spoke to our community in a different way. So, yeah, we basically started the development process for that as soon as I came over to Wo and we are now in the final stages of prototyping. So, oh man. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | So excited. |
| Benjamin Lowry | It's going to be a diving capable compass. So the depth rating was important. We're still kind of ironing out what we can get out of that. The dial is reminiscent of the WCC wrist compasses that you've seen associated with the Vietnam era. And we've done some other things that kind of to bring in our watch perspective where the indices are super luminova. Everything else that you'll see in a wrist compass is typically like a pretty cheap off the shelf, off the shelf, rather basic looking compass, like you'd find at REI or whatever, and they might work fine, but we wanted one that made sense next to your Seiko Willard or your 6309 or your Tudor sub. Sure. So yeah, I'm not exactly sure when they'll come out. It'll certainly be by holiday. I think it'll probably be sometime in November, but yeah, those are, those are coming. I can see if we can finesse WOE to post a. prototype shot around the time that the podcast airs. I think that could be cool. So people can kind of get an idea of what I just described. |
| James Stacey | Well, you should, everybody should be following WOE on Instagram. The link will be in the show notes, of course. So if you don't see the photo linked in the show notes, hit that link and catch it on, uh, on Instagram. But that's, that sounds like a great project and quite a lot of fun, I imagine. |
| Benjamin Lowry | For sure. And I think for me, like that's usually having a compass on you as a diver, Jason knows, James knows, like, Especially in the world of commercial, you don't need a lot of instrumentation on yourself because typically you're being managed by somebody from the surface. But in zero visibility situations or very low visibility situations, having a rough idea of orientation is nice. So some dudes will wear a wrist compass even if they don't have a depth gauge or even if they don't have a watch. So the idea of orienteering with a compass underwater is a thing. And yeah, I was just always interested to make one that was kind of like Just as good as, or one that made sense being next to your tutor or your whatever, you know, your Longines, like a nicer watch, something that felt paired with that, as opposed to, you know, a thing that came on a little cardboard guy at the checkout counter at REI. Again, nothing wrong with that, but we wanted to make something a little bit more serious for lack of a better term. Nice. That's great. |
| Jason Heaton | That's really exciting. Yeah. You know, I think this is the, we've reached that point where this mashup of luxury watch industry and watches, watches of espionage is something no one could have predicted a few years ago. It's such an unlikely pairing, but yet it makes so much sense now that it's actually happening. I was, when I was in the UK earlier this year and I went to Bremont and I was talking to Catherine who heads up their military projects, she could not say enough good things about, uh, watches of espionage. And it was just, it felt like I was almost, I felt this is overstepping, but proud on, on watches of espionage as behalf that like, you know, now there are brands that are actually talking about like getting their products like featured on watches of espionage. And I think that's, that's a really neat position to be in, um, for such a niche site with such a, uh, such a strange little focus. It's really cool. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Sure. I mean, we've been blown away by the response. And I think what's interesting, like our audience is not just like the watch nerd community that we belong to. It's not just the TGN or it's, interesting mix of kind of like the tactical guys, whether they're veterans or law enforcement or whatever, and then also some of the watch nerds. And I would wager that some of those people come to whatever piece of content that we've created, and some of them don't vibe with this one or that one doesn't work for these people or this group of people. But I think what we're trying to do is tell these niche stories in a way that everybody can get something out of them. You might not be a Navy SEAL or aspire to be one, But you might be like, oh, I love the Seiko 6309 too. What a great watch. And then, oh, here's some great photos and a story about a guy using it in a very real way that even though I'm not that guy, I can get something out of. |
| James Stacey | I think the site operates as like a really fantastic magnifying glass for a certain type of interest. Maybe you watch a movie that has a paramilitary or a military theme and the guy checks his watch. And that can be like, I think that can be enough for some people, especially when like the next thing you go is YouTube, like, oh, I just watched Blood Diamond. What is the watch that Leonardo DiCaprio is wearing? I think just a few people operating, as you guys are currently operating kind of strategically on a few platforms, could have a huge impact. And I think what I find really interesting, and I've spoke with the founder about this, I think it's fascinating because this, I think, is a product that engages enthusiasm in people who aren't necessarily already watch enthusiasts. |
| Benjamin Lowry | 100%. I think we're bringing people in. |
| James Stacey | I think that they might come to it because of the diving side of it. They might come to it specifically because of a military story from somebody they worked with, or a team that they once interfaced with, or maybe they were on. There's all these little vectors that aren't the same as... A lot of what the watch industry plays into is like, oh, you have money, you should be interested in these 25 things. And that's not that interesting. It's not something that we necessarily invest in on TGN. These stories, I think, I think watches of espionage and even up into the sketchy dudes wear Breitling, I think these stories offer people a layer of interest that's not just what the watch costs and how big it is. Yeah. And I think that for me, that's where I find myself keeping watches of espionage in my feed and in Feedly so that I don't miss any stories. Whereas other sites, I know that I can always just Google whatever the newest watch is and I'll get the 10 you know, intros or hands on or whatever, pretty easily. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. The goal is never to do, you know, this new Omega just came out at this trade show. Here's our, you know, we're going to rehash the lug to lug for you online. Like absolutely nothing wrong with that content. I've made a bunch of it. |
| James Stacey | I mean, it, it serves a purpose, but yeah, right. I think it's the direction you guys are going is much more interesting. And that could be me projecting some fatigue on intros and hands on and that sort of thing. But, uh, Yeah, no, I think it's been... I think it's been great. I think it's been fascinating to watch it grow. I thought it was really impressive to see watches of Espionage included in a Swiss watch press trip, which I think would have been difficult to predict for me like two, three months before it happened. Oh, yeah. I think it speaks to the impact, it speaks to the focus of that brand. We're talking about Tudor, of course. And I really... I hope that other brands consider ways of uh, collabing or supporting, you know, archives and, and they all have a history that spans wars. These are, these are all old companies for the most part. And, uh, and so I think there's some fascinating thing there and I, I I'm, I'm excited to see where you guys go, uh, even just in the very short term, uh, not even just because of a cool risk compass, but you know, for all that kind of stuff. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. At this point, it would be a great time to let you guys know that on the 7th, which is Saturday, the second video will come out. And I mean, based on the response that we've seen, we've all been pretty blown away and excited. Therefore, we now must jump into video content with both feet hardcore. So we're going to do our very best to get something out to you guys every couple of weeks on Saturdays. So, yeah, that's that's going to be the goal. And the next one comes out on September 7th. |
| James Stacey | Oh, that's great. I'm really excited to see it. I don't want any hints. I want to be surprised when it hits the feet. I have nothing to say. It's all redacted. |
| Benjamin Lowry | You've been trained well. |
| James Stacey | Um, you know, but before we get into some final notes and, and, you know, as I like to say, put a bow on the show, I'd be curious, like what's over your last couple of years going from legitimate educational training and luxury watches to a media slash, you know, um, retail brand. And then now into, uh, I would say fairly hardcore media brand with watches of espionage. Has this changed your taste in watches at all? Like have you, sold some things, found some new things, found new avenues? Are you a buyer-seller that much? I know you to be fairly... The watch, when I ask you, it's usually the same of a handful of watches that you've seemed to get going. And I didn't know if maybe the last couple of years spurred on some special explorations or that sort of thing into other watches. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Tough one. I would say I more or less remain who I am with regard to my actual personal collecting habits. I've always been Dive watches forward. I think I can say I'm looking around, but I think I can say I don't own a watch. That's not a dive watch. So, so there's that. And no, like all of us, I have a bunch of stuff. Uh, the, the light, like less expensive is always a thing for me to, I mean, coming from diving, I mean, military diving looks some type of way they have bigger budgets, but in a lot of commercial diving jobs, and especially the one that I was in, it was always just like, run what you brung. Like if, you know, if it worked and it was 20 years old and like, good to go, that's fine. So I gravitate towards watches like that. I mean, with watches of espionage, certainly exposed to incredible stories of, you know, U.S. Navy issued Tudor Submariners or watches associated with incredible events and people and stuff like that, which are all are very cool, but certainly not in my wheelhouse in terms of affording them. So, yeah, I don't think it's really changed my particular point of view on what I like that much, but rather allowed me just to get deeper into it. So, you know, when you live in a niche, you can also kind of collect in the niche. |
| James Stacey | Oh, yeah. But you haven't started a whole collection of Breitling? |
| Benjamin Lowry | No, I actually don't own a Breitling at the moment, but I watched the video that I had just made and then I was like, man, got to get another Breitling. I've had them before. |
| James Stacey | I mean, everybody needs an aerospace. |
| Benjamin Lowry | 100% agree. I've had a few in my day. I had a Superocean for a while back in the day, but for a long time, I bought, I mean, getting into watches in, I don't know, 2008 or seven or something like that. I've bought and sold probably just like you guys tons. |
| James Stacey | All right. Well, how about a little bit of final notes and we can, uh, get everybody on with the rest of their Tuesday. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Mine's mine's pretty quick, pretty, pretty short. Um, I've mentioned a few weeks ago that I I've gotten back into mountain biking after a number of years. And, um, as anybody that does mountain biking knows trail conditions are very important and it's, um, it's sometimes a challenge to, you know, if you want to throw your bike in the car and go to a trail head and you get there and it's either closed due to storm debris or. muddy conditions and things like that. It's, it's kind of a bummer. And I was turned on to an app called trail bot that you can download for Android or iPhone. And, um, there's also a website that you can visit, but the app is the primary delivery method and it just sort of aggregates trail reports, like the latest and greatest kind of up to the minute stuff. And, um, mainly it's Midwest us, um, right now, but I'm, I see on the website that actually they say North America, Inclusive. So a lot of trail systems in Canada, they've got some stuff in North Carolina, all over, um, kind of the U S and I've been using it quite a bit. You just kind of pull it up on your phone. It's super quick. Just gives you trails open trails closed. There's debris. It's tacky. It's muddy. It's no go, et cetera. So just, uh, something useful for the mountain bikers out there that I'd throw that out there. |
| James Stacey | Cool. Good, good suggestion for sure. Trail bot.com. Uh, Ben, what have you got for yours today? |
| Benjamin Lowry | I guess first to respond to Jason's, uh, hyped to see Jason more on the bike, the bike life, the bike game. I grew up a bike kid used to race bicycles. So just, uh, yeah, let's figure out a bike thing and do that together sometime. So throwing that out there, I'm not as much of a mountain bike guy. Cause I usually am like a more of a laying on the trail with my mountain bike nearby guy after I crashed. That's my issue with mountain biking more of a road bike guy, but we can figure this out. |
| James Stacey | Sure. So just holding one knee. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Essentially. Yeah, exactly. Right. And entering my later thirties, you know, you hold your knee longer. Let's just say that. |
| James Stacey | Oh, yeah. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. So, yeah, that's my response to Jason's for my second one. This is a product. This is a thing that I think I found it on Ally Alibaba or whatever, but I can post a link to that or give you guys a link to that. And then I also found it for more money on Amazon. I wore it in a recent reel that I should make fun of myself for making where I'm like, Oh, look at the cool submersible wrist shirts. And it's like me wearing a mask, sitting in my backyard. And it's like a video of me purchasing the shirt for marketing purposes. Please make fun of me. I deserve it. But in that video, I'm wearing an oval shaped, like an old school dive mask that is constructed in sort of like a modern way. And I was, I was thinking about trying to commercialize it and having it customized or something, but it's something where I would have to order frankly, just way too many of them and they would cost too much and all of those, those things that come from selling products. So I, I'm going to share it with you guys, but the ones that I got on Alibaba were offensively inexpensive, like less than $10. And it is a full, like, you know, food grade, whatever modern silicone mask, but just constructed in that oval shape. And it has the little pockets where you can reach up and equalize your nose. So I think I haven't gotten to dive it more than I've had in the water once, but I haven't gotten to dive in enough to really give it the this is good to go for all things at all times. But at the very least, for fun, for the low price of ownership, kind of an old school feel, but wears like a modern mask. So a cool thing. I'll share links. |
| Jason Heaton | Nice. Oh, I love that idea. |
| James Stacey | Oh, cool. Yeah, we'll have that in the show notes. That's a great suggestion. Always fun to find something that crosses the old and the new because the old stuff looked so cool. Yes. But obviously didn't always perform as well. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Divers have never looked less cool than right now, I would say. |
| Jason Heaton | I totally agree. It's probably true. I've got an old oval mask that I haven't gotten in the water, but when I put it on it, it's so heavy. And I just attribute that to, you know, whatever it was made of back in the day. So materials, but, uh, yeah, super cool. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Yeah. That's a good dig it. It happens to fit my face. Hopefully it'll fit some of you guys, but yeah. |
| James Stacey | Nice. It's sweet. All right, James, you've got a, I mean at $10, if it doesn't work, it doesn't fit your face. You can hang it on the wall. So it looks pretty cool. Yeah. I like it. That's cool. Well, I'm going to continue with the theme from last weekend's episode where I recommended a random piece of tech gear that I've really come to love. This is significantly less expensive than my glasses, monitors combination from last week with the Rokids, but this is called the Miu Mini Plus. This is an area of gaming that I've become quite fascinated by recently. This is essentially a system that allows you to emulate old, like pre-PS1 video games. And over the years, I've had these on my phone. I've had I've had emulators or the ability to emulate old Nintendo stuff on the switch via like you can get like a subscription. And I like all that stuff. I like going back and playing an older game here, there. And I got really fascinated by these just went down a rabbit hole over the last several weeks on YouTube and and found some really incredible channels that break down. And I'll include some of these like the mobile gaming stuff, but that break down all the different hardware. And I finally I do this thing where maybe you guys do it, too. I'll get interested in something, I'll research it to the point of fatigue, and then I'll just kind of go, fine, I'm going to buy this one. So I need to stop. I need to stop this phase and get to the next phase. Like I need to actually play a game, not just look at videos of people playing games. And so I bought this. It's a little tiny. It looks like a little tiny Game Boy, like a small modern version of an 80s Game Boy. So it has an OLED screen. It has a built in battery. It charges on USBC, but it still has a terrible little speaker. and, you know, Super Nintendo style controls. I think it comes with something like six or seven thousand games installed on a little SD card that it comes with. And obviously I'll put, I'll preface this here. There is an ethical consideration to playing emulated games. These are games obviously that aren't sold anymore, but are essentially being stolen so I can play them now. If you're uncomfortable with that, click forward a few times and you'll get to the end of the show and a great quote from Ben and we can all move on. If you want to play some games, this seems like one of the best ways to do it. This is about $80 on Amazon. It seems to play for about six hours. The screen is very bright. The UI and ability to add other games all really easy. It's all kind of drag and drop, almost like using a USB memory key. And you can certainly find huge repositories of these, you know, long, outdated, no longer sold sort of games online. But I've been playing a ton of mario golf advanced tour. I just love mario golf. I always have an advanced tour. I didn't get around to and then the other one, which was I've owned for two previous systems, so I don't feel that bad stealing. This one was a chrono trigger, which is said to be one of the best written games of all time and I'm part way into that and I gotta tell you that one, the fact that the hardware is quite small, I can play it with one hand. So if I'm on a bus or on a train or sitting in a a plane like it just isn't that difficult to find a comfortable position for my elbow and and it doesn't weigh anything and it's kind of translucent plastic. It feels like I've gone back to the s and I just absolutely love this. So I think this is kind of like with the row kids last week. If you're listening to me talking, this is exciting you. I think you'll get a lot out of this and if you're listening to me talking, this is like why why skip it and move on and you don't have to invite complicated game emulation into your life, but these are super fun, and I've seen them. Some of the videos I watched said that these get to be as low as 50 bucks, but I think this is the brand new model. It's called the Miu Mini Plus, and it seems to be in some level of demand. I didn't have that much trouble getting it here in Canada, so I have to assume you'd be able to find it in a hand. I'm sure they have it on places like Alibaba as well, to make a call back to Ben and his dive mask. Maybe you get yourself a new Game Boy and a new dive mask in one box. Who knows? |
| Jason Heaton | It's funny. Both of your final notes were sort of Neo retro sort of products, right? Like a old, old new dive mask and then an old new game console. That's really cool. |
| James Stacey | And then the wrist compass, that seems to be, I've been liking these hit the show notes if you're interested. Yeah. Oh yeah. And the wrist compass, of course. Yeah. We're having a good time for sure. Well, look, I think that's the episode. Ben, I couldn't possibly thank you enough for coming on. Sorry we waited, you know, almost 300 episodes, you know, to kind of make it happen. I'm glad we're slowly checking off a list. We've got a list. We're working through them. But it's good now that we've had you, we've had Chris on. It's been a really fun season of guests recently as we move towards 300. So thank you so much for coming on. |
| Benjamin Lowry | Appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun. Definitely been a listener for years. And yeah, very cool to actually be here talking to you. |
| James Stacey | Awesome. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, it's an absolute treat. Well, as always, thanks so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to The Show Notes, get into the comments for each episode, or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN-signed NATO, please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is, as always, Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive. |
| Benjamin Lowry | And we'll leave you with this quote from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Wes Anderson's 2004 film. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in ten days, I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome. |
| James Stacey | That's some co-hosting right there. |
| Benjamin Lowry | I do what I can. |