#111. Peggy Murphy: How Humboldt County Grows Business Without Selling Out

Humboldt needs good jobs, a stronger tax base, and a plan that doesn’t depend on the next boom saving us. I sit down with Peggy Murphy, the County of Humboldt’s Economic Development Director, to get specific about what economic development really looks like on the ground: helping local businesses stay open, building a workforce pipeline, and making sure we’re not “buckshotting” our limited time and money across a hundred disconnected ideas.

We talk through the cannabis industry boom-and-bust with clear eyes. Peggy explains how legalization brought heavy regulation, stacked licensing, and real supply chain costs that crushed margins right as the market got oversaturated. That leads into Project Trellis, a cannabis business support program created because cannabis still can’t tap federally funded Small Business Development Center services. If you’ve ever wondered why whole towns feel different after an industry contracts, this part connects the dots.

From there we zoom out to the long game: industry studies like Project Rebound, aligning business attraction with workforce development, and using tools like the Samoa Peninsula Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District to make sites build-ready. We also hit broadband as economic infrastructure, why “ultra-rural” communities get misunderstood by state and federal decision makers, and how tourism marketing can focus on longer stays without trying to overrun the place we love. If you care about Humboldt County economic development, workforce training, remote work, small business growth, and sustainable industry, you’ll hear what’s possible and what’s in the way.

Subscribe wherever you listen, share this with one person who cares about Humboldt’s future, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Economic Development Basics

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors and those out at sea, it's Scott Hammond with the 100% Humboldt Podcast. You're number 111, by the way. Oh hey.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Seems like it's a good number.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

With my new best friend Peggy Murphy. Hi, Peggy. Hello. Tell us uh who you are, what do you do? Where do you hail from?

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Sure. My name is Peggy Murphy. I am the economic development director for the county of Humboldt. I've been here for 10 years prior to that Bay Area in Seattle, and even before that, here again.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Oh, really? Wanna go back and talk about all that. Tell us about economic what what does that do? What do you do day to day generally?

SPEAKER_02 1:09

There is no regular day-to-day. Oh, it's not good. It's fun. Sometimes it makes it challenging. I think the cornerstones of what we do in our office are business services. So really the traditional economic development of business attraction and recruitment efforts, really to see more industry come into our area, and then business expansion and retention efforts. So ensuring that our local businesses have the supports that they need to stay in our community or expand.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

You mean businesses like mine?

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

I never highlight this.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

And then our office also supports workforce development. So we have a workforce development team. We house the county's workforce development board, which is a federally required board to receive federal allocations. We also house what used to be known as the job market locally, has been rebranded as a Humble Workforce Coalition and does direct participant services. So we have a team of vocational counselors. Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Love those guys.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Providing hands-on services to community members that need employment help.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Wow. So I just thought you were fifth floor. I mean, AI saw me, you're fifth floor up there doing records.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

I'm not going to lie. I saw your first one. I was like, I have no clue what vital records.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Custodian of vital records. This is not a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

That is not me, no. I think that might be uh the recorder's office.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

So our uh AI is um not working today. Wait, what do they call it? They call it hallucinating, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Uh it's trying. All right.

Childhood Roots And Family Detours

SPEAKER_00 2:38

I was on acid, I think. So we're not gonna worry about that. So uh tell us where where were you born? Where were you raised? Uh where'd you go to school?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Um I was born in Lexington, Kentucky, but moved to California before I turned one. And so born and raised in Livermore, my dad worked for the National Lab and my mom was a wine chemist for Wente and Kentanon and Retzloff.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Um and then I came up to Humboldt for college, loved it here, but what'd you study? Um I have an interdisciplinary studies degree, really focused on environmental science.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Oh, that's cool. Did you write your own? I did.

unknown 3:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Wow, respect. Yeah. That's cool. People were doing that when I was there.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Yeah, it was a fun. It was fun because uh of course I've got the creative side, and so it allowed me to do a more technical approach with some creativity to it, which I really liked.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Aaron Powell I like that, yeah. I had the opportunity and I go, uh so I I kind of ended up with a conglomeration of a liberal arts degree with kind of wrote it. Sorta.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Yeah, that's kind of how I ended up at the Indian area. I always had that conglomeration. I was like, I'll make something out of this.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Right. I have business, I have theater. Yep. I have um PE and REC and all the things. So yeah, Humboldt State. Now Cal Poly. Correct, yeah. Wow, Livermore. So your your mom's a winer.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Sure is. She's actually she actually a wine chemist. That's they like their wine. What's more interesting, I think, about my mom is she's actually from Poland. She moved here a couple of years before I was born and has her master's in chemistry and kind of just landed there because my dad got his job at the lab.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Wow. Did they meet in Poland?

SPEAKER_02 4:12

No, they met in Kentucky as postdocs.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Oh wow. Is that a school?

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Uh no, University of Kentucky, just doing their postdoctorate program.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Is that in Lexington?

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Yes. Uh the kind of fun story behind that is Poland was still communist at the time, and my dad already had the job for the federal government, and they told him he could not marry a communist.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Oh, hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

And my mom's uh visa for that work had a two-year return requirement.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Um so they wanted to get married, got told by the federal government that they could not. And so my mom got um citizenship in England.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Which apparently at the time only took a few months. So she got citizenship in England. My dad flew over to England, they got married in a courthouse in England, he flew back to the US, she went back to Poland, and then he petitioned uh Feinstein and Boxster for almost two years to get her over earlier.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

How about that?

SPEAKER_02 5:06

They allowed it about a month before her two years was up.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

So my parents celebrate two anniversaries when they were married and when she came to the U.S.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

That's a cool story. Yeah. Creative workaround.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Yeah. My other fun story about that is when I was about seven, two men in big black suits come to her front door because they had just figured out my parents had done that. So nine years later.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Sometimes it takes the feds a little while to catch up.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

And by then, you know, it was well after communism had fallen. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

So that's a good story. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of polls where I'm from in Sioux City, Iowa.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

A big Polish town.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

So good pierogi.

Seattle Research Work And Google Maps

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. My dad used to talk about it. Um, so you went to Humboldt and got your what did you do after you got your degree?

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Um, I went home for a little while. My dad was going through some medical issues, so went home, helped around there, and then when things got better, I started just putting in applications all over the country to places I thought would be fun to live.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Got a hit from the University of Washington in Seattle, took that job, moved up there, had only been there once when I was a child and knew no one, and it was great.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Perfect. We will go to the land of the unknown.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Yes, yeah. I was adventurous then.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

I used to get out a lot more.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Yes, same.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

I used to do a lot more things. So we have a new uh saying, besides let's get curious in our marriage. Let me reframe that. Jody and I being of advanced maturity are trying new things. So let's get curious, let's let's have fun. The other uh Pastor Jason and I um in Arcada, we have a new saying. It's uh let's see where this goes. So sometimes it's fun just to do different things.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Figure out how it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

You can go sideways, and then you can you just walk away.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

But if you're prepared that that's a possibility, it's much easier.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

We were at a wine tasting, oddly enough, and let's see where this goes. And it was went great. Starts pulling out ports and all kinds of stuff. So uh as your mom is a wine chemist, I'm gonna get on that because I have a little bit of interest in wine. Um so she probably drinks like killer wine, I imagine she gets all the reserves from everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

Aaron Powell This is the irony of my parents, and something I love about them is they will buy the cheapest wine to the most expensive wine. And half the time they like the cheaper wine. The box let's get some of that boxed wine. Oh, yeah. It's a it's a funny thing because my husband and I will buy them like gifts for Christmas, and then my siblings and whatnot. And this one brother-in-law that will always buy like the very expensive bottle wine. The killer something. And it's always the like Christmas Eve wine, and half the time my parents are like, what happened to that two-dollar bottle from Trader Joe's? Yeah. Where's my box? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

From Costco.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Yeah. So I don't know if the years of chemistry really led to led to the refined palate you're hoping for.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Right, right. I know they do a lot of chemistry, uh chemist uh chemistry tricks at the end with the wine to kind of get it to taste right.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah. So a lot of those low-di wines and my son went to UC Davis, which has got a big wine program. So anyway, how do we get off into wine? I don't know. So uh Humboldt, then what'd you do up in Seattle?

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Uh my first job up there was doing environmental and occupational health sciences for the University of Washington. It was a very interesting study based on um diesel exhaust fumes causing asthma in children. Wow. That was not the fun, interesting part. Um Is it true?

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Is there a correlation?

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Uh it's been 20 years, but I believe they did find a correlation.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

You could see that.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Um my actual job was driving a Prius around Seattle with an entire air monitoring kit in the back seat that looked like a giant bomb structure that covered my whole back seat, all windows down, rain or shine. Wow. This was 2007-ish. So a Garmin on the front telling me what the bus route was, a video camera recording everything.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

And the whole time I had to have a bus behind me running its route with kids on it. Oh. And the thing was, if you lost the bus for more than three minutes, you had to rerun the route at a later date. And the bus drivers hated us. They felt like they were we were in their way. They were trying to lose us. Anyway. You know, they would turn the turn signal on, then not turn, and you would just turn. And so it was it was a fun job. But then I had a partner that was always on the bus with the same air monitoring kit. And so we would take those samples to see what the ambient was in the Prius ahead of the bus and then what the exposure was for the children on the bus. Then we went into the schools and had them do spirometry testing and we would do a sampling. So it would be kids that walked to school, kids that drove to school, kids that took the bus to school, and we'd have them blow up these balloons and do these tests. And then we did it again at the end of the day right before getting on the bus. In their lungs. Yeah. So it's right off the bus. And then right before getting on the bus, and then we'd ride the bus back. Wow. And uh definitely a ragtag bunch of post-college kids, lots of cursing on those video cameras, you know. Lots of lost buses. And not just the bus drivers. No, no. Well, the bus drivers, you know, they're behind us, but it would be them. Yeah. It would be them like, oh, I'm gonna ditch you, and they would turn their church and signal on and you would turn and they would keep going straight, and you're sitting there cussing and you know, trying to catch the bus again so you didn't have to do it again.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

You're a college student and you're a nepreus, so you're kind of open open game at that point.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

So I did that. And then uh when that study ended, I actually went through a workforce development program, very similar, actually the exact same ones that we run out of our office today. Um went back to school, got a degree in uh web design, visual design, did websites for a while, and then got a job through that working at Google Maps, doing a lot of the mapping.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

In Palo Alto or?

Oakland Art Life And Moving North

SPEAKER_02 10:42

No, in Seattle. Or well, outside of Seattle in Bellingham area. Um sorry, not Bellingham, whatever's across the water. Bellevue. Bellevue area. Close enough. Um a couple hours away from Bellingham, you know, bees here. We're working with the bees in the Seattle area. Um did that, and then uh met my husband in there somewhere, and we decided to move back to the Bay Area, get married, went back to the Bay Area, got married, uh, spent a while trying to find a house, bought a house in Oakland around the time we had the art gallery. And so you had your own gallery in Oakland? We did, yeah. Cool.

unknown 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Like downtown or it was uh on Franklin between Franklin 15th and 14th.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

I know exactly where that is. I'm I'm kidding, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Some people sometimes do, which surprises me.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

I know Lake Merritt.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Yeah, so not far off of Lake Merritt, maybe three or four blocks.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

I know Alameda.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

Yes, yes. And I know not close to Alameda.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Have you ever been to Forbidden Island, which is a tiki bar?

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Oh yeah. My husband's big on tiki bars. His goal is to open a tiki bar here. Oh, I gotta be.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

It might be profitable.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

You don't need to know of your own supply there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yeah. So there's a a couple of tiki bars in Oakland, too, I think, that are I think it Trader Mix, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Which may have closed or wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Could have. Yeah, I'm not sure. I think the Mai Thai was invented in Oakland in World War I. That's what I heard. Yeah. Yeah. Rumor has I believe it. No, no, it uh Forbidden Island. We used to go with my wife and her son, and it would just be magical and fun. We had Miami Dave would serve us. Oh fun. Yeah. What's up, Miami Dave? Did you ever see this? He's a colorful character. We'll just say that.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Yeah, I know. So uh Oakland, and then you sold and came up here?

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Yeah, so um about 2014 when we found out that I was pregnant with our child, we weren't living in the greatest neighborhood. You know, we were two working artists, we didn't mind so much. Our house was gorgeous. It was a mid-century modern, actually built, custom built for the uh band leader for Finoccio's, which was the original drag bar in San Francisco, even coined the term drag queen.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Um, and it was beautiful. It was floor-to-ceiling windows. It had been built out for her to be the band leader, so she would have practices in there. It had a specific place for the piano. And it was just gorgeous. Cool house. But in a very unfortunate neighborhood, which again was fine for us when we were just artists, you know, fumbling around the Bay Area. But then once the kid was coming into the picture, we were not in a position to send him to the schools we would want to. Yeah. So put the house on the market. Um, and then put an offer in on a house here that had some permitting issues. And so we'd loadballed, full disclosure, completely lowballed. Um and the woman said no, which was probably pretty reasonable of her. And so we bought a van and we were going to drive around the country until we figured out where we wanted to be. And the day we were set to leave, she came back and said yes. Ah. And I just remember sitting there in my parents' living room deciding if we were getting in the van and driving around the country or driving up to Humboldt.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

And we decided on Humboldt.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Red pill, blue pill. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah. And very happy with the decision.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

And you never had to live in the van down by the river.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Yeah, hopefully not. We don't know what the future holds here.

Small Business Help During COVID

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Uh for those of you that got the reference. Uh if you're just joining us, it's my new best friend Peggy Murphy from the County of Humboldt. And I'm Scott Hammond, and we're doing episode number 111. We have a 111 in progress, you might say. See what I kind of did with that. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully. Uh so now you're you're back here and you're working for the county yet?

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Yeah. Uh, uh got here, um took a while to you know get on our feet, figure out what we were doing, and uh then I got a job for the Small Business Development Center, worked there for a few years, and then COVID hit. This is on E Street when in the Yeah, in the Prosperity Center building. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

My friend, my one of my best friends in the world, hi Ron. Owns the whole building.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Yes, love Ron. Do you know Ron Pellegi? Yes, yes. And you're gonna have to remind me of his wife's name. Uh Sandy. Yes. Yes, both very kind people.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

They were very sweet. They are super sweet.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

They live upstairs in the exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

So during COVID, because that apartment now is super cool.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Oh, really? I haven't seen it in years. But during COVID, uh, you know, we were all on lockdown, but I was running workshops still. And so I would come in so that I wasn't doing them from home with my kid running around and my dogs and all that. And they would be in the apartment and the door to their apartment was right behind me. Right. So there's like countless workshops where you just see the door open and Ron stick his head out. And then, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

It's the coast gear.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

That's fun. So that was you that's your desk right there.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

It was, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Cause we would have hung out with them and probably Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we go way back because you used to do Toastmasters next door and Greg Foster was there and and Michael uh Kraft and um Oh, Janet.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

And Janet DePace, yeah. Janet DePace. Yeah. Actually had lunch with her the other day.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Really? Yeah. So she coined the term when I was introducing a Toastmaster. She introduced me as recreation, administration, Humboldt State. She goes, You married you majored in recess?

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

I go, Yeah, that's good. I like that. I did. I'm a recess guy. So um you worked for those guys and then and then what?

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Um then somewhere in the whole COVID thing, I decided it was time to start seeing whether what other opportunities were out there. I mean, not gonna lie, it wasn't a hugely fun period to work for the SBDC during COVID. We were going through all the PPP loans, the idle loans. I mean, I think we did great work overall. It just was tough talking to all the businesses that really were struggling and didn't know what to do. And we were supposed to be a resource for what to do, and we also didn't necessarily always know what to do.

unknown 16:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

There was a manual for all of it. Yeah.

Cannabis Regulation And Market Collapse

SPEAKER_02 16:36

And, you know, building the ship as you sail it. So uh started looking around, applied for some jobs, landed an interview with the county and the economic development office, and was hired to run Project Trellis, the cannabis business support program. Right. The initial intention there had been to actually turn it into an SBDC for cannabis businesses because cannabis can't uh tap into federally funded programs still to this day. So no SBDC services, no workforce development services. No marketing, no anything. Yeah. So um that was the original intent, but then I come in to find, you know, start talking to the state, and that was not the intent of the state's funding. So we had to revamp the program, ran it differently. It continues to run to this day. We've put out well over 12 million in state funding into our local cannabis community, which I think we all know is a drop in the bucket in reality for them. But you know, at least at least we've got some type of business support, and hopefully it is helping some folks.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

So what's your take on the moom boom and bust of that industry? What what caused that? Where is it at? Where's it going? Um So now we're going to get into economics. Yeah. Um it's kind of a mess, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. And I think you know, the common things that are absolutely true is it went from unregulated to highly regulated, the costs are absurd. Aaron Ross Powell The taxation's been crazy, right? Aaron Powell Yeah. And not just the local tax estate aspect, but also like the state licensing fees and the separation of licensing, so that you have to have a license for this, then a license for that, then a license for that, all just to get your product to market, which means you've created the supply chain of all these people that need to get paid along the way, which reduces the profitability. Right. And at the same time, with an oversaturated market, your profit has already been gouged. So now you're also playing an entire supply chain on a quarter, if not a tenth, of what your product used to be worth. Right. It's a bad combo. There's also the hard part with Humboldt where you became such a destination for cannabis because you wanted to be able to hide. You know, you wanted to be in the hills, you wanted to be out of sight. Remote. When things legalized, you want to be on the I-5 next to your distributor next year. Yeah. And so what we see is those areas that have that access and the population base.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah. We're driving up Santa Barbara gonna get some weed. Yeah, it's funny because uh I don't know that I'm a huge fan of cannabis, but I am definitely not a fan of big government and rip-off taxation. I mean, as a business owner, I have a I have a fifth employee. It's called Uncle Gavin.

SPEAKER_03 19:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

And Uncle Sam. And maybe they're a conglomerate of of somebody that doesn't really do that much for me that I can tell.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

They're a high-paid employee.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Yeah. And it's always the like concept of someone at the top determining how something at the bottom should work without knowing the community, knowing the local needs or the actual system.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Aaron Ross Powell So the taxation and the way they pulled all this off for the grower the cannabis grower back to weed. That plus uh legalization supply and demand was kind of a death knoll for some, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Aaron Ross Powell Oh, yeah. I mean we've seen a dramatic increase or d increase a dramatic decrease in the amount of operations and they say Garbreville is a really sad place right now.

unknown 20:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Which is kind of sad. I don't know. I I we're all boom and bust. I mean, it's like the whole America is built on boom and bust. So is Humboldt.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Yes. And part of what I I don't know if it's the issue, part of the thought process behind what we're trying to do in our office is move away from boom and bust, move away from this business and industry that relies on natural resources and extraction of those and really looking at what opportunities there are to bring industry in that's different, that's more like what we see in other areas that isn't contingent on how much you can grow or how many trees you can cut or how many fish you can fish.

unknown 20:43

Right.

Remote Workers Tax Base Smart Growth

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Funny you're here, because this is kind of a theme in the last three or four weeks. I there's a thread in the podcast. And that is what are we doing here?

SPEAKER_03 20:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

I w where are we going? Because we've got homelessness, no one's got great ideas. Everybody's got great ideas. Got healthcare, you got housing, and you got job joblessness. And it's or you know, I don't my son Mike is a smart 21-year-old. He's got he's laying it down, man. He's got I don't have a lot of job options here yet. And so I'm wondering somebody mentioned uh remote workers. Yep. And I'm going, okay, how do you get them here and how do you keep them here? And oh I think people that work remote that want to live in Humboldt are probably here.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Yeah, I mean it's funny you say that, because we've had some recent conversations with remote workers to ask exactly why they ended up in Humboldt. And what was interesting to me in the conversations is their primary answer was that most of them have to check in to their place of employment once a week, once a month, something like that. So they picked this location because of the flights available or the easy access to the Bay Area or Los Angeles or wherever their main site is. So it's been on my mind, especially with the April 8th launch of the Seattle flight. I know, I was going to mention that. Yeah, with a major tech yeah. With a major like tech workforce, what could we potentially reap out of that for remote workforce?

SPEAKER_00 22:14

So if we went to Seattle and said, Hey, you want to move to Humboldt? Yeah. Hey, remote workers at Boeing at Boeing.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Or Kirkland.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

Yeah. Or the Googles or the Microsofts or the Amazons or Costco. Yeah. Absolutely. And You know, some of that has to do with recognizing that we do have a housing issue too. And so what is that just bottlenecking a bigger issue? Right. But also you see them spend their money in our community then we don't see the like incremental growth of say retail sales tax out of them having a business here that contributes to retail sales tax. We would see the incremental component of them spending their money locally.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Whereas Amazon came to McKinleyville and grew some jobs and that'd be different. Even though that's arguable and not really where I want to go.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Yeah. I mean it's Steve Madron does. Yes. And I will let him. Yes. Yes. Yes.

unknown 23:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

And I mean, I think there's something to say for being considerate of what type of development we do and whether the overall is really bringing in the needs. Because part of what we're really looking at for our office is how do we increase our tax base?

SPEAKER_03 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Because the things that you just mentioned, the homelessness, the drug issues, psychiatric issues, a lot of those like basic human need issues are supported through tax base.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Right. And roads. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Roads, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Central Avenue sucks, man. McKinleyville? Come on, Steve.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

Again, not touching that one.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Somebody said there's money set aside for that. Is that true? I see we're not in touch with that. We're not going to touch that.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

I mean, I honestly don't actually have an answer for that one.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

But bigger pictures. It takes a tax base.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

With jobs and companies.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Trevor Burrus, And we have a great entrepreneurial economy locally. We have wonderful people with great drive. We are one of the areas that has some of the smallest uh outside investment into our area, though. Interesting. And so there's something to think about in that. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Amongst counties in Humboldt.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Yes. And I believe actually the number it looks pretty dismal when you look nationally too, for where we kind of fall in that investment. That's kind of a trip. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

I guess because of distance, right? Geo geography?

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Aaron Ross Powell But that and we've long had a we will do it ourselves mentality, which isn't always bad, but you know, for local growth opportunities, it's important to understand that outside investment doesn't mean 4,000 new people in our community. It sometimes just means some money to develop and build and expand your base.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Aaron Powell Or nuclear waste or something worse. Yeah. It's it's so I I think as I've grown up as a young man with long hair, hard to believe, folks. Um, for 40, 50 years in Humboldt, I've watched my perception is not in my backyard. And we're so freaking picky about everything and every and it's like and so pretty soon you go, hey, you're not just picky, you're doing a not in my backyard. I caught you. What what are you what uh what up with that uh person who or company or big giant business that doesn't want a Home Depot or blah blah. Let's let's just go on and on. So the bottom line is uh what and now we got six dollar gas, we got outrageous real estate prices. I mean, the deck is stacked against us in so many ways. And and the and all the uses that work two and three jobs and still can't frickin' afford a home.

SPEAKER_03 25:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Like what? And so that after you're further through the frustration and navigating homelessness and navigating all the things um to have leadership in play and county city level that says, no, we're not doing that. We're gonna just do this other thing. It's like um I I think we've got to grow smart, right? I mean, w guide me along here. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm ranting quietly that um that there's gotta be smart development, right? Yes, yes. Smart jobs.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Yeah. Yeah. We really need to be very conscientious that when we talk about development, we're not bringing in something that our community doesn't want. Um one thing that's been interesting for our office is we do respond to requests for information for potential development, for entities interested in developing or growing or whatnot. Trader Joe's. That's a whole nother story. Um, no, we don't receive them for Trader Joe's. Uh these tend to be more heavy industrial entities. We saw a very dramatic shift with the new administration going away from a lot more like clean energy opportunities, things that actually align very much with our community values and uh needs. We've seen it.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Instead of going away from that.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

We've seen it shift heavily towards nuclear opportunities, towards uh yes, and defense opportunities, things like that. So it's also a very interesting time to be trying to be very conscientious of how we develop because the opportunities aren't the same they were three, four, six.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

So blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. So we continue to look, but we do really keep the community in mind. There is a point, though, where I think you have to weigh what's, you know, the greater good. Right. And sometimes it is saying no to something. Other times it's you know welcoming something with thoughtful manner to do so. So like a lot of the community benefits agreement conversations that were happening around wind, there's abilities to have conversations that leverage what our community needs if we have concerns, but the development is worthwhile.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

And compromise. I guess that's gotta come into this, right? Yeah. Yeah. I um yeah. The concern is uh my concern is sometimes the bigger voices win the day who are not necessarily a majority.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Aaron Ross Powell We call them the STPs, the same ten people.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Ah, I like that.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

They have a name. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And that's who they are. It doesn't mean that their voice isn't important. It just means that it's not always the last voice that you need to listen to.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Aaron Ross Powell Right. I like that. And you know and sit down, you've had your say. I I've seen a couple of those go and you know, it played out, it didn't go your way, and now it's done and the voting's done. Well why don't you sit out? Yeah. Have a seat. We're gonna do you can you can weigh in on the next one. Yeah. Because yeah, and sometimes we're not really satisfied with that. Well, cool. Uh I want to know more about economic development after you win a Dick Taylor chocolate market.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

Oh, yay.

Rapid Fire Favorites Around Humboldt

SPEAKER_00 28:52

What are you talking about? Oh, the brown butter brought to you by Adam Dick, Dustin Taylor. Yes. And they're amaz you know what? They both married up like I did. They have smart wives who support them because they're because their wives are amazing, they get to be amazing. I appreciate that. Be behind every good man. Hey, um, so let's do the quiz. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Sure. Hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Where's my bell? Where's all my props, Nick?

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Here they are.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

I don't know if I was prepared for a quiz. All right. This will be fun.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Maybe we'll maybe This is an introvert in me loving this.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Question number one. Favorite takey drink?

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Oh, I think I'm a classic Mai Tai. Classic Mai Tai. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

You ever heard the na what is it called? Navy uh uh I'll think about it later. Question number two. You get a whole day to do whatever you want to do. Money's not the question here. And uh what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Locally?

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Yeah, locally. Um What's your best day ever?

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Well I would probably go to Renata's for a crepe, end up at the beach for a bit. Ooh, what's your beach? Dry lagoon, probably. Oh wow. Yeah. Good choice. Yeah. Uh love agate hunting. Um end up up there, would hit Miller Farms on the way home, buy some plants, and spend the afternoon in Miller.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Don and Dick Miller, legends. Yeah. Miller Farms, that's that's it. No one's ever had that choice. And then do what at home? A garden. Garden. Yeah. Okay. Garden therapy. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Maybe split spend some time in our redwoods.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

What gives you a a brain bleed in metaphorically in terms of drives you crazy, hurts your heart?

SPEAKER_02 30:39

I think it's the uh in this line of work specifically, the insane amount of bureaucracy to make a difference. And I think the more hurts my heart is having an amazing office full of really amazing staff that are working really hard every day in a very uphill battle to to improve things. So you're quite the leader then. I my staff is amazing. They do all the work.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah. I know that feeling.

unknown 31:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

All my staff are younger and smarter, quicker.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

That's great.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Yeah, and motivated and they love their community. And it's just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Yeah. And sometimes it's hard to look around the office and see them all working so hard and knowing that things are happening at the state and federal level we can't change, that impede the work they're doing, that especially with HR1 requirements coming down soon for work requirements, our office is preparing to help our community as best they can to make sure people keep their medical and SNAP benefits.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

And like that.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

It's gonna be a huge lift with no extra funding, no extra staffing. And you know. And they're all happy to take on that work and figure out best ways for our community. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

They got a cool crew.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

They're amazing.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

I like that. Every single one of them. You know what what's her name said? J uh Jessica? She said a lot of people just I don't know, she said this. Somebody said this recently. A lot of people that came from the marijuana industry came back into the workforce and made it better. Because th they had a lot of cream in the crop at fifty bucks an hour cash, making seventy-five an hour in real life. Came back and and took you know, other other real other real jobs.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Well, yeah. Other jobs.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Other jobs. It was all work and it was all real. Uh hey, number question number three. What gives you life and fills you up?

SPEAKER_02 32:31

I mean, my family. I have a wonderful husband and great son, and they're just lovely. If I could spend all the time at the beach with them, that would be it. Is he an only child? Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Oh, guess who else was? Who? Me.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

My mom raised me in San Diego, National City, even better. And um what do you do when you're that guy? You go to Humboldt and meet Joni and have nine kids?

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll see what happens with mine. He's only 10, so I'm not prepared then yet.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Oh no. It's great being an only child. You it's I don't I didn't never do any different. Okay, last question. You ready? If you could hike on one trail in Humboldt, what trail would you go for a w a walk on?

SPEAKER_02 33:12

Tall trees. Tall trees. I love tall trees, Lou. Wow. It's my favorite place to take folks.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

I Tall Trees meaning um out bald hills. Bald Hills, yeah. Oh, so bald hills and then walk down?

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Yeah. Have you ever done the hike? It's the hike that takes you to the base of the tree from the National Geographic magazine.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

No, my wife does it constantly.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Oh I yeah, I love that hike. Partially I love that hike because at the top, if you're there at the right time when the fog and rolls in, it looks like you're above the clouds.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

It's amazing. And then the hike is gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

And oh yeah. We go we go all the way up to the end where they'll let is it the purple flowers that all bloom.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Oh, the lupin.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yeah, the lupine bloom. What's that? It it's another hike. We went done did that one before. But we'll do Prairie Creek and stuff. Yeah. Always fun.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Nice. So that's a little bit of an elevation drop too.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

Yeah, it is. Don't forget water.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

It's super easy going down. Yeah. Yeah. That's the best part. Yes. Go for a swim, hang out.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

And then the uphill is always the oh my god, are we almost there?

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Right. Right. We have a secret swimming hole on Redwood Creek. Ooh. Don't tell if we if we told you, we'd have to kill you. It's amazing. So in the summer, it's quite nice up there. No one tells their secrets, secret swimming bottles. But they're fine.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

I'm not telling mine.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Just look it up. ChatGPT. Chat knows them all.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Well, hey, congrats you, my friend, have won a uh dark chocolate, brown butter, nibs and sea salt, 73% Uganda dark chocolate bar. Well, thank you so much. Courtesy of our friends at Dick Taylor. I will enjoy that. You will. Delicious. Go get it with wine. You're going, what's up with the wine, dude?

SPEAKER_02 34:46

I grew up with a wine chemist for a mom, not unusual.

Planning Economic Development As A System

SPEAKER_00 34:49

She's also talking about wine. I don't know. So tell me about economic. Let's go back to economic development. Um, some of the like top three programs that you guys are about. So you said used to be the job market. I'm familiar with that.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Yeah, and now known as the Humboldt Workforce Coalition. Yeah, that's probably her biggest.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

And so and then the difference between SBDC and the Prosperity Center, and they were all in one one you guys are on E Street, but they're actually there's two different things. One of them is up at Humboldt now, right? At Cal Poly? No, it's it's in Arcata.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

Aaron Powell The SBDC is in Arcata now. Yeah. So the Prosperity Center was just the name of that building, which was basically a collaboration of multiple entities that were working towards the same.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

And Greg is with SBDC?

SPEAKER_02 35:29

Uh Greg is with Redak, Railroad Region Economic Development Commission. Yes. And I think also in that building, the Film Commission was in there as well.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Cassandra was there.

SPEAKER_02 35:40

Yeah. When Nate was still there as well. And then for a time when I first started, Humboldt Maid was still in there. Um I'm trying to think of who else. There was a few other people that had offices in there. Yeah, it was in intended to kind of get all the not all of them, but some of the key players of in the economic development.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Yeah, Scott Cubarcus used to do workshops and marketing. Absolutely. This guy.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Yeah. He's my good friend.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

He and uh Marianne love them.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Oh, they're great. Yeah. He introduced me to Testmasters and then and then the NSA.

unknown 36:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

National Speakers Association. So we would at here let me connect this. We'd go down to Oakland to that waterfront hotel and do workshops at the whatever it is now. It's like it's two now, but they're right there. And um amazing dude.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

I love them both. They're wonderful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

They were a great part of my time at SBDC.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Oh nice. So uh yeah, he would come and do workshops, right? Yeah. And Jeff Smaller and all of us. Yeah. Ex-Toastmaster types. So tell me more about so how how are we going to economic develop Humble?

SPEAKER_02 36:45

Um, I mean, we're trying. Uh I think so taking kind of a step back on all of it, we every five years we do an industry study. Prior, we called it the targets of opportunity. This last one was called Project Rebound. It had a lot of resilience and um focus on what we do if another pandemic happens or earthquake happens or things like that, but really focus on economic resiliency.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Aaron Powell Do you guys finance it and do the study or hire it out?

SPEAKER_02 37:15

Uh we hire it out. We especially over the past few years. I mean, we're a very small staff. We are a staff of 12 currently. Well, maybe we're 13 right now. Um, but are you in the county building downtown? We're over by the old Harley Davidson and the plaza building with child support. Um Humboldt Building. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that one. But eight of seven or eight of our 12, 13 employees are all our workforce development team. So, you know, small team. Um and so we we do get consultants to do that work. Uh you know, five-year goal for me would be eventually that we are doing that type of work in-house. Um but we get that study done and it analyzes our local area to figure out what our top industries are so that we're focused. So we're not just, you know, buckshotting everywhere trying to make uh impacts that fall flat because we're just too spread tooth in. And even then, we have nine target industry clusters, which is still a lot for a small team. Um we then get the comprehensive economic development strategy and our local and regional workforce development plans built off of that industry study so that we align both our workforce and our business and economic development strategies on the same concepts.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

So are you kind of betting on an industry that's coming on that's going to come on strong?

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Well, so these ones focus on existing industries. So these are really like the agriculture, fisheries, yes, tourism's in there. And then we're taking those and we're going through them and we're looking at what we can do on the economic development side to do business attraction or recruitment, but also really importantly for our region, uh retention expansion of our businesses. So what value adds can we provide to the commun to those industries, communities? Um and then as we do that, how are we preparing those businesses with the workforce they need to support that?

SPEAKER_00 39:07

So training training.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

Yeah. So our workforce team is coming in at the same time, preparing people to take on what we're hoping is expansion of jobs in those industries based on what we do on the economic development side. Um that said, though, to your point, we are definitely looking at other industries and things that don't exist locally to see what we can potentially bring in, things that are more cutting edge, but more on the like nationwide, scalable industries. I mean, clean tech. Clean tech, um, even things in potentially in drone, robotics technologies, things like that. We are paying close attention, of course, to the federal administration to see where funding will likely be placed so that we can take advantage of that because realistically, none of this happens unless we're funded. Um, but we're also paying very close attention to the state's blueprint for economic development. And in that are specific industries we do not have locally that the state has indicated they will be putting money towards. And so we are paying attention to that and seeing if that's a way to bring industry in locally with good paying jobs and hopefully then spur entrepreneurship around that as well.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Love it. So you're layered, man. You got to be looking, playing all the best.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

We're definitely looking at different levels and figuring out how we can make those impacts. The one thing that I always kind of make sure that people understand, though, is this is a long game.

unknown 40:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Economic development is not you'll see this change next month or even next year. You're more likely to see the impacts of what we're doing today in five to ten years.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

And that's a hard conversation with economic development because people are hurting now.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

And they want to see the change now.

SPEAKER_03 40:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

And with the way our funding works, being primarily grant-funded office or getting funding through the board of supervisors, it's an annual review, basically. We're basically coming back every year and being like, do we need, can we get more money? Can we keep continue being sustained? And there's not always the attitude of you've made incremental progress towards your five-year goal. It's a we haven't seen the change yet. And so we're always in the cycle of also defending the progress and working towards a larger goal.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Defend that thesis. Yeah, every day. Folks, life is a long game.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Not just economics, but everything's a long game. Yeah. Parenting is kind of like that.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

Aaron Powell, Well, that's the thing, is the long game in my end is that I have a 10-year-old and I hope that by the time he's looking for a job, like your 21-year-old, he's not saying that there isn't anything like that.

Samoa Peninsula Tools And Funding Streams

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Or Seattle, like I did. Or Seattle. Heaven forbid. Well, it's a flight now. I mean, Seattle's cool. I like Seattle. So if if you so economic development, so you're do you do trainings and and you foster that. So um if you find an industry that you really want to be all over and help, do you have tools to bless an industry an entire industry? And do you do you have t levers that you can like, I don't know, kick tourism in the in the pants real hard and help it?

SPEAKER_02 42:13

I'll touch on tourism in a second. If a lot of times what we're looking at is heavy industrial, because that's really like the manufacturing that end of it. Um we do have some tools. We have an enhanced infrastructure finance district for the Samoa Peninsula. So everything south of the bridge falls into that. It creates an incremental component into of property tax into a pool where we can do infrastructure updates, things like that that need to happen so that we can get a site build ready. A lot of those are brownfield, so there's brownfield remediation work needed, sewers needed, things like that.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

There's land to do that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

Right. Um, but a lot of times they're not in a developable state right now. And so that uh has the opportunity through that incremental property tax growth uh to put funding into a pool where we can make those changes there. So we can then go to businesses in those industries we're interested in and say, we have a completely development-ready plot for you.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Cool. So you have some power, some discretion.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Yeah, I mean, it's at the will of inflation and property. Some tools. Yeah. Um and then we have some other things. One of the things our office does is site selection work for potential industries. So we do work with our local developers and landowners to solicit their properties to potential development and industry. And we do act as a concierge service, then setting up meetings, say they need to meet with planning and building or they need to meet with the Coastal Commission, or we work heavily with the governor's office of business and economic development for state incentive programs. And so we will introduce them there and help them. Yep. Yeah. Everything that we do is a collaborative process.

SPEAKER_03 43:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

There's absolutely nothing that we do that we can do alone. So we really rely on partners and systems.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Yeah. I was gonna ask about money. Can we get can we get some money from you? Or is that do you just have partner do you push people to partners?

SPEAKER_02 44:03

Um, I mean, it depends on what we're talking about. Um we don't have holdings of funds to just do things with. Um, our workforce development programs run an RFP every four years for uh youth providers. And so that is a way for people that want to provide youth services to get some funding out of our programs to be able to run those.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

Um and then we do have the Headwaters Fund. Which I'm sure you've had someone on here before to talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Do you have a chunk of it? Is that how that works? Or do you administer it?

SPEAKER_02 44:36

We administer it, but we also you it has a revolving loan fund that is done through the funds go through REDEC and North Edge into their lending. Um but then the interest off of those comes into a grant fund.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Which we do granting, I think our cap on a grant is$100,000. And so we do that. And that's actually open to public entities and nonprofits for projects that will lead to economic development or job creation.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

How much money was that when it all came through? Aaron Powell, I shouldn't know off the top of my head about 20 million. And then it's grown because it's been invested in the Trevor Burrus.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

It's about the same. Yeah, it's about the same right now. Yeah. I mean it's lended out. Some things don't work out, other things do, but there is a requirement of a certain amount staying within an investment pool.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Somebody was talking about the new uh economic development uh contest that the Arclear. The Arcleys used to do it. Now the new guys tell us about that. Do you know much?

SPEAKER_02 45:35

Aaron Powell I you know, we that's through SBDC and uh their partnership with remind me, um uh the venture capitalist group. Aaron Powell Right. What's his name? Oh yeah, I'm gonna blank out. I shouldn't. Um but it's a partnership between those folks to try to encourage and support new economic development projects. Well that one's cool because it's accountable all the way through, right? Yes. No, that one's lovely. Um the Headwaters Fund did provide them a small grant for their marketing efforts. Other than that, we're just cheerleaders for it. It's a great opportunity. We fully support it. We are pleased to see who is in the running for it and think they're great.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

And there's not just one grand prize winner, but there could be, but there's a pool of money that's going to be dispersed.

SPEAKER_02 46:20

That's my understanding, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Huh. What's it called again?

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Startup Humboldt.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Yeah. Yeah. I like it.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Who's the person?

SPEAKER_02 46:28

Uh you know, I mostly speak with Will Franklin, who's the director for the Small Business Development Center. He's heavily involved, and so he's my person for it.

Broadband Backbone And A Five-Year Timeline

SPEAKER_00 46:37

No, hey, Will. I know Will a little bit. Um so I had a question about uh something in Arcata. So Colvin Lumber Copeland Lumber used to be um uh McKinney lumber, and now it's a giant cable that goes to Singapore.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

Oh, the yeah. Or broadband cable, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

Yeah, so what does that actually do in terms of its um what does it actually achieve that that cable that comes here?

SPEAKER_02 47:02

Does it well I mean it'll be the connectivity to provide broadband through our area into some of the harder-to-reach areas. Um it goes rural, so it could come out to the 299 project, definitely. Yeah, Hoopah and all of that. Trinity Valley. Yeah, that's a absolute Connie Stewart project. Again, we are huge cheerleaders for her. Love seeing that happen. That conversation's been around since I was in college here.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Aaron Powell It's not a big jobs thing. It's it it but it's uh infrastructure.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

It's infrastructure, but it's also, you know, it's a digging project in the long run to get that in. So it's huge, it's a construction project, so definitely a workforce project with that. And then the overall infrastructure definitely leads to potential development. You know, businesses need to know that they have good, solid Wi-Fi, especially if we're trying to attract remote workers or it's bigger than a redundancy to optimum or said link. It's it's the actual access that we have not had.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

So it's the backbone. Yeah, it's everything we've needed. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: But is it working?

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Is our backbone working or uh Well, I don't believe that the last mile projects have started yet. I think they're starting soon, and I've may be totally wrong on the timing, but somebody will flip a switch and we'll have access to not that simple.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

But if probably was don't you people just press buttons out there? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 48:24

This is the whole it's a five to ten year project point. Dang it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Oh, you said things are slow.

SPEAKER_02 48:29

Yes, it's not gonna happen next month. But you know, huge progress over the years and absolutely a selling point when we're talking to businesses. Especially the ones that are looking at rural communities.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

So you did good on the quiz. Let's see how the I want to ask some Humboldt questions.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

What do you what do you like about Humboldt County?

SPEAKER_02 48:47

I mean, the community. I feel like I know that at any point if I needed something, my child needed something, my husband needed something, there's someone that will come help us. And then there's the river days and the friends. And I feel like coming from the Bay Area, especially, you know, we of course I grew up there, I have my friends there, but it there's this whole different depth to the community here that's just amazing. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

And there's no river days. We went to the Delta twice this summer.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

Yeah. No, it's different. Yeah. It is. Yeah. So the the the the geography makes the difference.

SPEAKER_02 49:27

Yeah, and the tenacity of the people and the resilience that we see.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

I mean, so our hot date night for uh COVID was getting the Odyssey van, drive from McKinleyville to uh Camel Rock on Scenic Drive. Throw those van doors open, baby.

SPEAKER_03 49:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:46

And the sun's coming in and have a picnic and just right there. Love it. Watch people surfing. We saw a guy parasail. Oh, wow. He ran off the cliff like five times and did die. I know it's gonna give me anxiety just thinking about it. Oh, this guy.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Good for him.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

And he's he would just get this fast run and go for it. And it's like, where are you from, bro? I'm from Ashland, Oregon.

SPEAKER_02 50:08

Well, I mean, I think that's one of the things. Your point about your brief point about tourism earlier. Outdoor recreation is one of our biggest uh drivers of tourism locally. We saw a boom in it even during COVID, and it's we're coming back strong on that. In fact, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but Cal Poly Humboldt in partnership with our office and some other folks is putting on an outdoor recreation summit this year to talk about what we can do to really grow outdoor recreation, especially in the tour travel and tourism industry. Very cool.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

Where's that gonna be?

SPEAKER_02 50:38

It's at the with the Humble Bay Aquatic Center, I believe, in June. This year it would be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

That'd be neat. Yeah. So people from around wherever and come and talk about it. Yeah. Like that. Um what do you not like about Humboldt? What do you what do you loathe? I wouldn't ask that. I would what what what's not your favorite?

SPEAKER_02 51:05

The invasive blackberry bushes.

unknown 51:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

I don't know. For anyone in the gardens. I mean, I hate those blackberries. Because I've been picking uh thorns out of my hands for 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

Um fog for 20 days in a row.

SPEAKER_02 51:19

I love the fog.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

Oh, you're a fog you and my son Justin.

SPEAKER_02 51:22

I love it. I love watching it rolling. I'm up Neeland, right kind of at the fog line, and so we get the kind of late afternoon rolling. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

Um we get that a lot in McKinleyville by the airport. In fact, we I often pray for the people at 10 o'clock that's in LA on the flight. Because you circle. Because we're they circle once. Oh, I've done three times. Sometimes they don't circle.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Oh, they just head right back.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Jodi watches them on the flight trackers.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

Oh, I'm sure. Oh, they're going back.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

They get one pass. It's like rookie, rookie pilot. Yeah. And sometimes the the other guy the other night did three. Yeah. When they come in, I you go, oh, there's gotta be nothing more deflating than like an all-day flight and coming home, and I'm gonna see my sweethearts. And I'm back in San Francisco.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

Yes. We myself and some coworkers went to a conference a couple of years ago, and I'm on the California Workforce Association board, so I had to stay a couple days longer. Drop the two folks off at the airport that are going home before me that night get a call thinking, oh, they're just telling me they're home. Nope, they've been revived back to SFO and are looking for a hotel room. So the next morning, they're taking off again. I'm at my board meeting for half the day and then going to the airport that afternoon. As I'm returning the rental car, they were calling me on repeat and I'm like, oh. This is good. And I answer the phone right as I return the rental car. And the staff member's like, don't return the rental car. Oh no. Because their flight went out that morning, came back. Oh no. And then my flight is I look at it, had been moved back three hours and keep that rental car. Come get us. So we just got a new rental car and drove home. Easier. Yeah. But you know, yeah, I I it's that's quirky about us. I don't know if that even bothers me. We understand that. We know our area, we know what's happening.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

It's funny how you accommodate that. You go, yeah. I I it's hateful for me. I would hate it. But then I would go, okay.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

I'm proud of our airport and what it can do. I think it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

I think people I think a lot of pilots take the the easy paths anymore. They used to land them. Yeah. Um pretty regular and f and not thick fog, but fog.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Yeah. I think though, if I was to name my one thing I probably hate the most about Humboldt is this and it's not even actually about Humboldt. It's about the fact as an ultra-rural area, we're very misunderstood at the state and federal level what what rural really means. Right. We find that a lot of times in our systems, Fairfield is considered rural or San Bernardino. And so we're having this conversation, we're like, no, no, no, no, no. You're like an hour or two of nature, three, 30 million population district.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

Like you're not understanding our level of rural.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 54:05

And that comes up in a lot of the development conversations. And the misunderstanding of how that impacts our area and our ability to develop and attract good sustainable business. That's a big miss. It's a it's very hard. And I think that my biggest frustration is that our policymakers either don't understand or are choosing not to fully understand, or are choosing not to make the investment. Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

You're in rural Napa.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

Wait. I mean, we've had Santa Rosa. Yeah, we've had that conversation too. Burbank is pretty rural. A good example is we see at the state level on the California Workforce Development Board with whom we have a great relationship. Their farthest north appointment for their workforce board is Connolly. So out of the Santa Rosa area. No one from anywhere north of that. The whole state workforce board. Wow, that's not good. We also see it with Caled, which is our California Economic Developers Group. I mean, wonderful uh organization. But similarly, I think farthest north is actually, I think, our former director, Scott Adair, with Santa Rosa. Wow. Yeah. And so how does our area have a voice if we're not at the table?

SPEAKER_00 55:15

Right. We don't.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

That's probably my biggest biggest hatred, frustration.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

Yeah, that's a hard one. It'd be a hard one.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

Constantly banging on the door of how do we get a seat on your board.

Tourism Readiness Marketing And Final Wrap

SPEAKER_00 55:26

So uh if you're just joining us, you're really late to the show. Which is fine. Thank you for coming with my new best friend Peggy Murphy. Hey, so as we wrap it up here, what what would you like to talk about? What's what's what's on your pet um pet program stuff that we you you would like us us us to know about out there with what y'all are doing? Since I'm talking rural now.

SPEAKER_02 55:51

Oh, gee. I mean, you brought up tourism, so probably worth talking about what we're doing with a relatively large marketing analysis that we've been having done recently. Um few years back when uh the county chose to stop funding the Humboldt County Visitors Bureau and move to a different model. Our office was tasked with running an RFP for an entity to do an analysis of our marketing currently.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

RFP meaning.

SPEAKER_02 56:18

Oh, thank you. I'm sorry. Uh uh request for proposals. Okay. So public process to make sure that we're getting a consultant or contractor through an appropriate transparent means. We picked a contractor, and over the last uh six to nine months, they've been working on this analysis that includes uh asset inventory and a strategy for moving forward. Uh we are expecting that to go before our board on April 28th, and we're looking forward to that. It will discuss beyond just how to spend more money on marketing for our region, but also some of the aspects of what we need to do to become really tourism ready. And the focus is really there on how do we increase the amount of visitors to our area within our capacity and not just increase them, but how do we extend their states? Because the thing is what we we, you know, no one here wants to be overrun with tourists. We already get a lot of tourists during certain seasons. What we want to see is longer stays that mean more tax dollars again. Some ships. Yeah. Yeah. So different what are the different avenues? I mean, our new flights are a great, a great part of that. Yeah. Um, but I think it'll be an interesting conversation because the county, of course, does have invest its uh transient occupancy tax dollars into our county's marketing.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

I think the five soups are pretty behind tourism.

SPEAKER_02 57:42

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. And you know, each of their districts has a different component of tourism, impact in tourism, needs around tourism. And so it's a really multifaceted conversation that I'm hoping leads to some really positive changes for our area. So we could get behind that.

SPEAKER_00 58:01

I sure hope so. So as we wrap, tell us tell us what you want to be remembered for.

SPEAKER_02 58:08

It's funny, my kid asked me this the other day, and I told him for being your mom. Um That's a good answer. Probably not the answer for this one, but you know, I mean I was a great mom. At the end of the day, I mean, I just hope that for myself that you know, when I'm older, I can look back and see that I made a marked difference. I don't I don't think there's a panacea. I don't think that anyone's gonna change everything overnight. I just hope that I can look back and see that I moved the needle and had a positive impact.

SPEAKER_00 58:40

Love it. I love that realistic kind of look going. Yep, I made a good difference.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

It's hard to not be realistic in the long run or I blew my kids up.

SPEAKER_00 58:48

They just were awful and I was a terrible parent. That keeps coming up in our our adult kids. Yeah. They it's a joke. It's kind of an ongoing joke. Well, that was our and Joni goes, that's our job. What to really mess you up so you can have the comeback and all the therapy that you're gonna need.

SPEAKER_02 59:03

Well, I always think of it, you know, we all talk about what our parents did to us. And then we came out normal, right? Oh, yeah, totally normal. Um But I think often like none of us have a handbook for any of this. We're just doing our darndest to do a good job on it.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

Yeah. There's no onerous manual for this person.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

I actually tell my child that a lot. That like, especially if I don't hand a situation well, it's that, you know, I don't have a manual telling me how to handle every situation. And yeah, you know, it's kind of true with everything else. Right.

SPEAKER_00 59:36

My oldest goes, hey, you know, your good your best was probably not good enough.

SPEAKER_02 59:39

Going wait till he tries.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

Yeah, good luck. You got two daughters that are wild children, they're gonna have fun. So it'll be fun watching you, Justin. Yeah. Love you, Jess. Well, thanks for coming, Peggy.

SPEAKER_02 59:48

Of course. Thanks for having me. This was fun.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

Hey, and if you guys uh like to uh like us or subscribe or send money or gold bullion or just uh make a comment, we'd love that. Uh Scott Hammond on all the podcast platforms. We're on Access Humboldt, we're on YouTube, we're all the things, and uh thanks for joining us. Uh like a good neighbor. I've never ended a podcast by saying that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

I don't know if I believe that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:13

Thanks for coming.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Thank you.