Q&A with Keith Bright

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Q&A with Keith Bright

Keith Bright is the owner of Bright Fire Cigars and treasurer for the Williamson County ESD #4 in Liberty Hill. The selfproclaimed MacGyver is an engineer at heart who spent 36 years working for IBM making the impossible possible. After falling in love with cigar lounges all over the world during his travels, Bright decided to open his own cigar lounge here in Liberty Hill following his retirement. Bright sat down with LHL, lit cigar in hand, to discuss cigars, traveling and civic duty.

STORY BY KRISTEN MERIWETHER

LHL: What did you do at IBM?

KEITH: I did pretty much everything that you can do except build typewriters. The last 10 years of my job I was in charge of IBM custom contracts worldwide. So if somebody came to IBM and said, ‘can you build us something?’ it was my job to entertain that.

LHL:You said you worked on defense contracts. What was it like to work with top secret military specs?

KEITH: I can’t tell you (laughs). It was exciting and very challenging.

LHL: Where did your MacGyver spirit come from?

KEITH: My dad and uncles. I had one who was an engineer in the Navy. Another was an engineer for NASA...I was just always drawn to everything from electronics to hydraulics to welding to machining.

LHL: What drew you to the cigar business?

KEITH: When I traveled, at the end of the work day, I would ask the concierge or somebody locally ‘where’s the nearest cigar lounge’. Instead of going back to the hotel and killing three or four hours just waiting to go eat and go to bed, I would find myself at a cigar lounge. It didn’t matter whether it was in Moscow or Bangkok or Rome, there was always a cigar lounge. One of the things I liked about cigar lounges was the people in those lounges. I met people from all over the world with all kinds of different backgrounds and so I didn’t really want to open the cigar shop to sell cigars. Cigars was kind of a means to build the lounges.

LHI: Do you have a favorite cigar?

KEITH: My favorite cigar is one I’m smoking right now, which I blended myself. I’ve got three cigars that I did some custom blend work with a cigar manufacturer.

LHI: Why did you get involved with the ESD as a fire commissioner and treasurer of the Board?

KEITH: I didn’t really have the time for it. But in all my career with IBM, I was super busy. So I figured it was time to do some civic duty.

LHI: What do you like to do for fun?

KEITH: In the early days, I liked to fly. I got my pilot’s licenses at 18 at Oklahoma State, and so I flew for several years until we had children. Flying became a little expensive, but I was also traveling so much I didn’t have time. [Now] I have my shop in the house. I’ve got all kinds of tools, so I like to restore old things. I restore old tractors, lighters, everything from little things to big things. I like challenges to fix things.

LHI: What is the most memorable thing you’ve restored?

KEITH: I restored a 1939 Dunhill lighter that was solid gold….it took about three months, part time working on it, but that was one of those that everybody had declared it “unfixable.” Well that just fired me up. That’s not true! Anything can be fixed.

LHI: What was your first solo flight experience?

KEITH: I soloed with only six hours. I knew enough about flight and studied the flight characteristics of aircraft, and how they work well ahead of time. It just came natural. In six hours, my instructor said, “go, I’m getting out, you go.”

LHI: How do you handle frustration?

KEITH: I start with a cigar.