Todd Sanders:                   Well, welcome back to the podcast. We are very excited to have Tony Finn today, who is the Vice President of ElevateEd, which is a program under the Greater Phoenix Chamber Foundation. Welcome. It's good to have you here with us.

Tony Finn:                           Yeah, thank you. Pleased to be here.

Todd Sanders:                   Why don't we start by letting us know a little bit about you, tell us about yourself and maybe something we wouldn't know, or we wouldn't see on your bio.

Tony Finn:                           Sure. So my background is in higher education. And actually on the business operations side of higher education. And so I've been working with students for a long time, and one of my passions is being able to help people change their lives. In my personal life, I do belong to some community organizations and some civic organizations that work with younger age kids before they go into college.

                                                When this opportunity opened up, I saw this as a perfect blend of everything that I've done professionally, and what I've done on the personal side of my life. And since I've been here, I have really seen the great work that ElevateEdAZ is doing in the community, and very excited about the direction that we're going in and the number of lives that we're changing at a high school level, because then eventually they feed into our future workforce and our future college graduates. So this was a great opportunity for me, and we're doing a lot of good things that I'm sure that we'll discuss.

Todd Sanders:                   You bet. And in terms of something we might not know about you.

Tony Finn:                           So I grew up in a military family. And my family's very international. My brother lives in Stockholm, my wife is originally from Slovakia, my mother is from Taiwan, and lived in various countries around the world. That gave me a really good perspective on life and how people live in different areas and different cultures, and I think that's really helped me, not just in my professional career with understanding people with different backgrounds and wanting to make connections with different people and different cultures, but in my personal life, like I said, I belong to various organizations, and I think my experience growing up has really just made me a well-rounded person in that regard.

Todd Sanders:                   Well, and it's so interesting with travel. I think the more you travel, the more you realize that, sure, there are differences, but there's also so much that we share. We're so similar in so many ways, whether it's Slovakia or it's Stockholm or Phoenix.

Tony Finn:                           Yeah, and you're absolutely right about that. One thing that I've seen is people want to succeed. And they have various levels of success, but that inner drive to do better and especially do better for your family and for your children, I've seen that cuts across all cultures and all nationalities. And working here at ElevateEdAZ, we see that with the families we work with because we have a very diverse range of schools that we partner with, and various demographics that we work with, and we see that across the board. People want to succeed, they just sometimes don't know how to succeed.

Todd Sanders:                   Absolutely. What brought you to Arizona? Obviously you were all over the world. What brought you here?

Tony Finn:                           So like I said, my father was in the military, and interesting, in 1977 or 76, he got orders to go to Tehran. And we were living in California at the time, and he got orders to go to Tehran, and they took the hostages. So they canceled my dad's orders and they shipped them out to Tucson, Arizona.

Todd Sanders:                   A little bit different from Tehran.

Tony Finn:                           Yeah. We had our passports ready and we were very excited, and then we ended up in Tucson, which actually really helped shape who I am. Growing up in Tucson, a little smaller town than Phoenix, but very close-knit, very family oriented community that I grew up in, and then I ended up staying there and going to the University of Arizona. And then after finishing school there, I moved to Phoenix. I moved to the big city after that.

Todd Sanders:                   Well, we're glad you came, and obviously we're going to talk a lot about ElevateEdAZ. Maybe to start, maybe give us a sense for what it does and why.

Tony Finn:                           Sure. So as you mentioned earlier, ElevateEdAZ is the education initiative of the Greater Phoenix Chamber Foundation. And what we do is we align business, education and the community to help prepare students for both college and career. And I do want to emphasize college and career, because we have programs like our dual enrollment program that helps high school students earn post-secondary credits while they're in high school. So if they choose to go the college route, they do have some credits under their belt. That helps them out in their graduation time, but also financially, because they're not paying as much in tuition because they have some credits already.

                                                But we all know not every student is going to go to college. So we also, in our program portfolio, we have a credential program where students can earn credentials in high wage, high demand industry recognized credentials that would help them if after high school they want to enter the workforce. So our goal is to help high school students in any way that we can, not just while they're in high school, but after high school, depending on which path they want to go.

Todd Sanders:                   So we obviously have the opportunity for kids to earn dual enrollment credit. How many high schools are we talking about? Are we embedded in?

Tony Finn:                           Sure. So this year, I'm pleased to say we've expanded to 20 high schools, from 13 the previous school year. We are in five districts in one charter network. We expanded across the Phoenix Metro area this year, and that's what's really exciting about our growth and what we're doing, is our expansion allows us not only to impact more students from a volume perspective, but also students from different socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds. So doing a lot of good work and exposing students to opportunities is what we're really charged with and what our mission is, but it's an extra bonus when we can expose students that normally wouldn't have opportunities or exposures in certain industries or certain career paths. So that is something that we're really proud of and really excited as we continue to expand in the future.

Todd Sanders:                   So 13 to 20, that's a significant growth curve over one year. Is that it? Are we going to stop there? What's the plan?

Tony Finn:                           So right now we're at 20, but we're always looking to expand. Our goal is to be able to impact as many students in the state of Arizona that we can. Right now, we are primarily located in the Phoenix Metro area, but we do know that outside of the Phoenix Metro area, we do have students that want to be successful, and schools that would like to partner with an organization like us to help their schools become successful. One thing that we do look for is it has to be the right fit. The schools that we partner with have CTE programs that align with our high wage, high demand programs and industry clusters. So when we do look for a school, and if it's the right fit, we'll reach out and start that conversation to see how we can benefit them, and how we can benefit the students most importantly. So our charge and our mission is to grow and affect as many students as we can in the state of Arizona.

Todd Sanders:                   And it's certainly been a tremendous growth curve, and I think the demand is there. You mentioned dual enrollment. What are some other elements of the ElevateEdAZ program?

Tony Finn:                           So our objectives are to increase the number of students that enter high wage, high demand pathways. Our next objective is to increase the number of students that gain internships in those industry clusters. I mentioned dual enrollment in our credential program, but we also have a program for the teachers. So we have an educator externship program where we bring in industry leaders for a week long seminar and training, to expose teachers to things that are very relevant in industry now. And the goal of that is to help teachers because they're very busy. A lot of them don't have a lot of time to do a lot of research on their own, because busy shaping the lives of their students. So this educator externship allows them to be face-to-face with industry leaders, ask relevant questions, get up-to-date information that they can in turn bring into their classroom immediately.

Todd Sanders:                   It makes sense for somebody who maybe graduated in the late 90s or early 2000s from college and started teaching, that having that ability to come back and maybe speak to people that are in the field would be helpful. So on the other side of that, it sounds like we're having a lot of success as well on internships.

Tony Finn:                           Yes. So that is one thing that we're really proud of, because having that meaningful workplace experience for students really pays off a lot of dividends after they end high school. So last year, as I mentioned, we were in 13 schools, and we've grown to 20 schools this year. With that, we had a total of 77 interns placed for the entire year last year in our 13 partner schools. This year so far, we are at the midpoint of the fall semester, and we've already placed 209 students for fall internships.

Todd Sanders:                   So last school year, which obviously encompasses a couple of calendar years, it was 77. And right now we're at what?

Tony Finn:                           209?

Todd Sanders:                   Incredible increase.

Tony Finn:                           Well, I have an incredible team, and we have an incredible program. My team has really been putting their nose to the grindstone, and contacting businesses to open up more opportunities, and we have a lot of great industry partners that we work with.

Todd Sanders:                   What do you tell businesses that are reluctant to bring on a kid from a high school?

Tony Finn:                           With businesses, how we talk about internships is, the workforce is changing, right? It's getting younger, there are new skills that new workers need to have, and it's very important for these students to learn these skills at an earlier age. Also, one of the things that we're really proud of is we really want to open up opportunities to students from diverse backgrounds. So that's another thing that we talk to businesses about.

Todd Sanders:                   But if they're reluctant because they're thinking, "Well, the emotional intelligence of a kid in high school is not the same as somebody with more experience." Is that something you're having to overcome?

Tony Finn:                           In some cases. But throughout our program, we have a lot of support systems in place. And we do also talk to the businesses about the support that we bring to the table with these students. Embedded at every school that we partner with, we have a college and career coach. And that college and career coach helps prep the students with their resume writing, with their interview skills, how can they conduct themselves in a business meeting, a lot of professional skill training is done with by our college career coaches. So that puts a lot of businesses at ease, that the student is getting upskilling outside of work that's done by our team.

Todd Sanders:                   So putting this all together, I want to come back to the maybe biggest part of this question. We understand what we're doing and I'm really glad we're doing it, but why? Why are we doing this?

Tony Finn:                           That's a great question. From my perspective, I think we're doing it because we care about the state of Arizona. And we care about building a future workforce that is skilled and very knowledgeable. And we want to retain a lot of that talent here in the state. If you look at different industries like construction and or advanced or precision machining, there's certain industries that are coming to Arizona, or that are very large in Arizona, that we're going to have to replenish that workforce.

Todd Sanders:                   TSMC is a great example.

Tony Finn:                           Exactly. So what better use of the knowledge and talent that we have here in our high school ranks to help train them to move into those positions, and those future growth areas that are coming to Phoenix with local talent? So I know that's what drives me, is to help every local student stay locally and be able to have a great career, be successful, but also in turn help the Phoenix economy.

Todd Sanders:                   Well, it sounds like there's a twofold proposition here. One is obviously we're a growing economy, there are more jobs than people, we want to make sure that we're filling those jobs. The other part is we're making a difference in the lives of families and kids here in the Phoenix area.

Tony Finn:                           And that's huge. We've got some great industry partners and some new ones, but that's always a challenge. Like you mentioned earlier, there is some reluctance with some companies to hire interns that are high school students, and some companies have guidelines and requirements that don't allow them to hire students that are under 18, so that's probably the biggest challenge that we face with bringing on new business partners, is servicing that student base that's under 18.

Todd Sanders:                   And I think it's important to know that we can work with businesses that are wanting to hire or bring on kids over 18, but I think we've also seen success with companies that were at 18, that have moved now below 18. Is that correct?

Tony Finn:                           That's correct. One of those companies is Honeywell.

Todd Sanders:                   A great partner.

Tony Finn:                           Yeah, great partner, and they recently started accepting students that are 17. So that's great. Not just great for us, great for our students, but also great for Honeywell, because that opens up a wider population of students, interns that could potentially fill their future workforce.

Todd Sanders:                   I can't say enough good things about Honeywell, and not only have they expanded the program, but they've also started to hire some of our kids. And my hope too is that those who are going to college will still be able to come back and continue to intern for them while they're in college. So really a nice way of looking at it. Final question, where do you see ElevateEd in five years?

Tony Finn:                           So in five years, I see that we will spread throughout the Phoenix Metro area wider than we are now. We are just breaking into the West Valley of Phoenix, so I do see that we'll expand there, but also, like I mentioned earlier, our goal is to impact students across Arizona. So what I see is ElevateEdAZ potentially expanding outside of Maricopa County and the Phoenix Metro area. So we have some big plans, but we have a great team, not just the team that's on the floor, but we also have a great team of leaders. Jennifer Miller, our CIO, has been phenomenal, not just with creating the program and helping us expand with her vision, but also on the grant funding side, because we couldn't do any of this great work without our valued partners that are our grant funders.

Todd Sanders:                   Couldn't agree more. In Arizona and nationally, we've been very blessed, and I think that part of the rationale, they're seeing a really nice return on the investment in Arizona. So I want to thank you for joining us. Thank you for spending the time with us here. We're going to do a quick lightning round with you, Tony. I promise it's easy. What was your first job? Not professional, necessarily, but your first job?

Tony Finn:                           My first job, very interesting, I was thinking about this the other day. I was talking to my son, like I said, I grew up in a military family, and hard work was instilled upon us very early. So when I was about six years old, I used to sell rocks.

Todd Sanders:                   Hey, good for you.

Tony Finn:                           We lived on a military base, and I realized very early that military moms can't resist a young kid. So I would paint rocks, put little googly eyes on them, and go door to door and sell them for a nickel or something like that.

Todd Sanders:                   Good for you. What'd you learn then?

Tony Finn:                           What I learned is you're going to get a lot of people that say no, but a lot of people will say yes.

Todd Sanders:                   Absolutely.

Tony Finn:                           So you've got to be persistent, you got to be creative, you've got to have good ideas. And not just that, you have to be unafraid to pursue those ideas.

Todd Sanders:                   And certainly no mom can say no to a cute kid at the door. First concert? What was your first concert?

Tony Finn:                           So my first concert was a group called The Gap Band. They had a song called You Dropped A Bomb On Me. For any of those children of the 80s, you may remember that, but that was my first concert.

Todd Sanders:                   Where'd you see them?

Tony Finn:                           We saw them in Anaheim, and it was funny, because my brother was a little bit older than me, and he didn't know I was going to the concert, because I went with a friend down the street. So I actually saw him at the concert and he was really surprised that I was there because I was like 11 years old or something like that.

Todd Sanders:                   Excellent. And then the final one, since you're a man of the world, if you couldn't live in the United States, what country would you want to live in and why?

Tony Finn:                           Great question. I think that traveling the world and living in different countries has really given me a great appreciation of living here, to tell you the truth.

Todd Sanders:                   True.

Tony Finn:                           We have a lot of freedoms and a lot of things that sometimes in our daily lives we can take for granted. But if I did have to pick, I love Budapest.

Todd Sanders:                   Which is the two cities, right? Buda and Pest.

Tony Finn:                           Yes. Buda and Pest. Rich history, but on the Pest side, very new architecture, but very, very great place every time that we visited, so I guess I would have to pick Budapest.

Todd Sanders:                   It's a great answer, and I do think you're right. I think for those of us who maybe take some of these freedoms and things for granted, go overseas a little bit, and look back, and you'll be surprised at how amazing our country is.

Tony Finn:                           Yeah, you're right about that.

Todd Sanders:                   Well, Tony, thank you. We appreciate it. We look forward to having you again, and thank you for all the work you're doing on behalf of our kids and our businesses. .

Tony Finn:                           Great. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Todd Sanders:                   You bet.