Part 2 of Howdy Homemade Ice Cream Employment for Special Needs

Howdy Homemade Ice Cream is a unique business that not only serves delicious ice cream but also provides employment opportunities for individuals with special needs. The company is committed to empowering these individuals by offering them roles that enhance their social interaction and personal growth. Parents often witness transformative changes in their children, who blossom in the supportive environment at Howdy Homemade. The business collaborates with organizations like the Texas Workforce Commission to expand opportunities and aims to open more stores, allowing employees with special needs to step into managerial roles.

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Transcript

Mike Carr (00:07):

Well, welcome back. We're continuing from last week. This is episode two or part two of our conversation with Tom and Jeff about how do homemade ice cream and how they employ special needs individuals and some of their philosophy and stories and the journey that they've been on. So I hope you enjoy this. Either one of you have any stories where a mom or dad needs to be convinced that their kiddo ... We've seen, for instance, a lot of situations where the bar for mom and dad when their kids age out of school at 22 is to keep them safe. And so they'll stay at home and they don't think they can do anything. And so they're in front of that computer and they're not happy because they don't get the socialization. They don't get the friendships that they had at school. And it's really a pretty sad bar.

(00:48):

And mom and dad want to do something more, but they're worried about that safety because their kiddo can't necessarily talk like they need to or they don't understand their emotions. What comes to mind with what you guys have observed when maybe mom and dad are willing to give you guys a shot with their kiddo at a howdy and all of a sudden they blossom into something that the parents are just blown away by. I mean, anything like that come to mind or some other story that maybe is relevant.

Tom Landis (01:11):

You know what? This is what we live for. Like this is what it makes it is having parents come in that I've had discussions with of, gosh, could their son or daughter work the register and they're just worried that, oh, that's going to be too much. But you know what? You take someone on the spectrum and maybe just hasn't had a lot of social interaction. So all they have at home are stacks and stacks of used reader digest. So in the back, they're reading the jokes. So they learn the register and they don't just learn the register like a restaurant employee. Five days later, they might come back and say, "I've read through the entire manual." But now all of a sudden every customer comes up, they're picking one thing out and serving up a reader's digest joke with them. And the parent comes in and sees them on the register and just breaks down crying, right?

(01:55):

A parent that calls me and says, "You know what? I was planning on having lunch Thursday with one of my college friends and we were set and we were going to bring along my son." And I immediately, in mid-sentence, because her friend had flown in from out of state, had a layover at DFW, they were going to grab lunch because of course she can grab lunch anytime because she has a son with special needs without a job. And when in mid-sentence, she realized she couldn't just go and meet her friend for lunch because had to tell her friend that her son was working, both her and her friend just break down crying, right? Right. And that shouldn't be happening and howdy shouldn't exist and it shouldn't need to exist. But the reality is that there just aren't the opportunities out there. And you touched on something that is, I think absolutely it's more beautiful than like almost any sunset I've seen.

(02:41):

And that's when you have someone with special needs working with someone with special needs and the understandings, the language, the cadence, all of it. And one of the things that Jeff and his team are doing is working with the Texas Workforce Commission this summer start to bring in more people that will be able to work under our special needs employees because as we grow five stores in the next 14 months, we want some of our employees with special needs to step into manager roles and now we bring up more people and grow from there.

Mike Carr (03:11):

Jeff, I want you to talk a little bit more about TWC and what you're doing. And the reason for that is years ago, we took our son to Texas Workforce Commission and they took about five minutes and they said he was unemployable.

(03:22):

And it wasn't because they were not kindhearted, but he didn't meet the metrics, right? He didn't have the skillset. He couldn't talk. He had some medical issues and they weren't educated. They weren't trained. They didn't have the understanding in place that, oh no, he's employable. Now it may take a little bit of creativity, but in your work now with the TWC, how are you changing that mindset and how are you helping them? Because I think an adversarial relationship never goes well for either party, right? If you get into this argument and this very emotional thing, which a lot of parents do when they feel like their child's been mistreated, well, what do you mean he's unemployable? He can do this and this and this. And they don't feel they get the time that's needed or the respect that's needed. But with the people you're working at TWC and what you're trying to help them do, give us a little bit of insight into that journey because I think that's super exciting, not just for folks in Texas, but for folks around the country that have a workforce commission that they're trying to get some help from and maybe they're having a rough road to hoe.

Tom Landis (04:18):

I want to just jump in there real quick on adversarial. So for people that don't ... Texas Workforce Commission, right? TWC is one of the organizations that frankly I haven't been very successful at working with, but I might also fit in it. I don't play well with others category. And I love the phrase, iron sharpens iron is one man sharpens another. You know what found that I want to move at the speed of business. I want to treat people special with needs, like almost with the tough love that a coach Stallings had. And you know what? Frankly, hasn't gotten me very far in 10 years, right? I think it's one of the beauties and it works with like Jeff, a guy on the team that came directly from Wingstop is working in these groups with TWC with 29 acres and with others. And he can share more, but to share the mission and bring people together where maybe have rated some friction.

(05:04):

Well,

Jeff Schiefelbein (05:05):

I don't know about all that. And I will just say this, that one of the things I believe in more than anything is giving true agency and empowerment to everybody who works alongside you. One of my heroes is John Paul II. And he was famous for saying that the purpose for work is always the human person that work was made for man and not manned for work. So it's our formation. Well, in that, embedded in that is subsidiarity. We are called to give true responsibility to those around us. That could include a white collar worker who came from a wingstop. It could be for an employee who has special needs or for the formerly incarcerated. No matter what, dignified work with true responsibility is a place of formation and dignity for everyone everywhere. Now, when it comes to the Texas Workforce Commission, the reason I share that is I'm not the one on the front lines of having those conversations, but I can tell you that our team that is working alongside Tom and I are having relationships with not just federal and state agencies, but with dozens of different organizations that are part of training, employment, partnerships, places where we can be sending our knowledge and talent and details too as well, because this is about having the fortitude and the long game mentality that we're trying to win for something that is eternal and that our time on earth is just this place where we're doing our best every day, day in and day out.

(06:08):

So when relationships become contentious or adversarial, I have to believe that there's things that are either embedded in that organization or on the other side of a relationship that I'm not privy to. And I'm going to make sure that we live to have another conversation another day and keep plowing forward in the spirit of what we're trying to achieve in this mission. And we may never have a formalized program with Texas Workforce Commission, but I also will not shut the door on potential relationships and ways to be helpful and to be helped because I believe that that's one of the places that we can, in humility, achieve this mission across not just Texas, but all over the US.

Mike Carr (06:38):

And the reason this is so important, and you guys I think probably know this and probably many of our parents know this, but it's worth repeating. It's a financial argument. It's not a spiritual argument. It's not a religious argument, but I think it makes sense. The number of folks with severe autism, profound autism in the school system right now that haven't aged out yet is a hundred times the number of people that have aged out. And right now, someone that has the highest level of need in Texas gets over $300,000 a year, a year for the rest of their lives for one-on-one care, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Well, it doesn't take a math whiz to work the numbers and say, okay, there's so many more kiddos in the system right now. They're going to age out in five years, 10 years, and there's not enough money in this planet, certainly not in the state of Texas, not with Medicaid, Medicare, to pay for that kind of support.

(07:28):

So what's the solution? And you guys have addressed probably the most fundamental and important solution. If you don't give a hope on them, and if you figure out ways that they can be productive members of society, working at a Howdy, doing whatever they have some passion or some aptitude or some desire to do, now all of a sudden they're not costing as much. They may still require some support, but they're getting paid and now that number comes way down. And at the same time, the quality of life improves for them and for their families and for their parents. So I don't think there's really an argument counter to what you guys are doing. And I'm going to ask you though a very hard question. And it's a question that I need an honest answer to because it's one we deal with more often. Where do you say we can't help somebody?

(08:10):

Where do you say we don't think there is a job for that person? We don't think there is a way by coupling them with a higher support person that we can't find something with them because I don't want to leave parents with false hope. I don't want to diminish reasons for optimism. So just based upon your experiences and your philosophy, where do you have to draw that line in the sand or really is there a line in the sand that you have to draw?

Jeff Schiefelbein (08:34):

I'll let Tom talk about the realities of what it has been like to run Howdy or what obstacles he's run into in the last decade, but I want to steal one from his book from Coach Tom Landis here and talk about the fact that when we decided to combine our work together and talk about that the future isn't just Howdy homemade ice cream, it's the Howdy way that we want to have a shift in a brand that is helping people to understand employment in general, that he just gave you one examples all the time here, that what if the answer is we haven't solved all of it yet, that the yet is the severely restricted, the person who needs twenty four seven care may still have an opportunity to contribute. We haven't uncovered that yet in Howdy, but we're not going to give up on marching in that direction and encouraging others to get involved.

(09:23):

We would rather people think that Howdy is a dime a dozen because people are doing what we're doing all over the place. You

Tom Landis (09:28):

Know what the honest answer is, I think that maybe it lies within the special needs community itself. And I like to think of Kalin, one of the employees that's been with me since day one, more than 10 years, who has a non-verbal, severely autistic sister living in Florida. And if I were to look at you right now and give you an honest assessment and answer, I don't know how I would employ Connor, his sister. But see, what's interesting is there's this guy Kalin there, and every time you talk about his sister, Connor, he's going to look you dead in the eye and say, "You know what? Someday I'm going to be the manager of Howdy and my sister's going to work with me. " And I don't know what he's got in there working or whatever, but I absolutely can look at you dead in the eye and say, "I don't know if I can, but I think Kalin can and more can coming up." And the other part about that, and this is a question that I'm really glad you asked because the answer is I really don't know.

(10:14):

And the reason I don't know is because when people get hired at Howdy, we give them grace upon grace upon grace and they stick with us and they stay. And so it brings up ... So the next point then is, you know what? The hardest part about my job, the reason I like my phone the least is because every day I get calls and texts and Facebooks and DMs and whatever there is about, "Would you please hire my child?" And man, I'm a little ice cream shop, right? We do not have thousands and thousands of jobs, but I tell you what, gosh, I look at all the very successful people in my church and in North Dallas and in Texas and at River Bend Church in Austin and wherever else. And gosh, it sucks because 14% of churches in America even do anything for people with special needs.

(11:01):

So got a lot to do, but I think thanks to guys like Jeff and the crazy amount of horsepower that's been added to the Howdy engine and some of the others out there as well that are businesses that are doing it that are looking beyond just the numbers as to what are the opportunities. And I think what more and more people are seeing is, "Hey, Howdy is something that absolutely makes sense." And again, we haven't talked at all about the ice cream. It's because you know what? We believe there's way more potential in your son than where he is right now.

Mike Carr (11:32):

I think that's a great theme to sort of end on and also couple it with one or two other comments and one last question for you guys. AI has talked a lot about these days and a lot of folks don't like it because it's viewed as a threat, but because of the shortage of folks that are trained in this space, and it goes back on to something you said that maybe the answer lies within the special needs community. And I think you're right. And I think the right use of technology can be helpful as opposed to threatening. For instance, one of the things that we're starting to work on, we actually have four students coming down this evening to actually observe our son from the University of North Texas up in Dennis. So one of their professors driving down right now from Dallas Fort Worth to observe is what devices, what accommodations, what technology can be brought to bear to better understand and anticipate challenges and issues with these folks before they occur.

(12:33):

So for instance, you wear a watch, an Apple kind of watch and it measures your pulse and your heart rate. And if all of a sudden your heart rate spikes or your pulse goes way up or your perspiration goes way up and a little alert sounds on the supervisor's phone, "Hey, so- and-so's maybe got a bit of a problem or they're fixing to have a meltdown or something's bugging them, maybe we need to go over and talk to them or take them aside and see what's happening." And then the next step is multimodal. And what we mean by that is these glasses that are coming out now can record everything. They can record what you're seeing and what you're hearing. And with AI, all that data can be downloaded in the cloud and parsed in real time. So at the end of the week, an employee at Howdy maybe had 15 or 20 events, heart rate, perspiration up, and maybe some of those were joyous because a customer greeted them at the cash register and it gave them that moment of joy or maybe it was a meltdown in the back because they were having problems taking care of some big bins of ice cream and they dropped something on the floor and there was ice cream all over the floor.

(13:30):

But maybe not everybody knows that, right? So the idea is with technology now, we can have AI suss through a whole week of data, what they heard, what they saw, what that did to their heart rate and their perspiration and say, "Hey, take a look at these 15 things and let's look at five minutes ahead of time and get the team to sit down and say, Oh my gosh, we didn't even see that. We didn't understand that the noise was so loud that was bothering somebody or that there was something else going on that they saw or that they heard. And so it's this idea that with the right tech, the right accommodations, the right environment, you can accommodate folks and understand what they can't communicate. There's a reason they're acting the way they do. There's a reason they're having an off day. Can we get a little better at knowing what that is so that we can anticipate it and we can be more proactive?

(14:13):

So I don't know if you guys have had an opportunity or even any desire to use any kind of technology or any kind of internet of things, devices in any of your stores or if that's even on your radar, but I'd be interested in your perception there, yeah, we've tried something that didn't work, or no, we haven't done anything yet, but we think that's something we maybe should try in the future. Or we got so many other irons in the fire, that's not even anything we've looked at yet. Any thoughts there from either one of you?

Jeff Schiefelbein (14:37):

I'll tell you, I actually had somebody pitch me on this very long thing over Thanksgiving, Christmas, showing me where they've taken in the Midwest folks with IDDs and equipped them with the right equipment and help them to do tasks they otherwise couldn't do. And I do see the values in those things. I don't want to knock the technology can be used that way and that you can also have learnings from it and increased capability. It's really interesting as we've been going through a brand identification and going deeper into who is Howdy as we then march and start opening store after store after store. I think we don't have an aversion of technology, but I think we're trying as much as we can do to just make this the good old fashioned incarnate relationship of two humans or four people coming together over this beautiful, joyful experience of ice cream.

(15:21):

And so we would prefer to be tech light without being idiots about skipping something that would really actually help everybody.

Tom Landis (15:29):

In agreement that 100%, I think what AI is going to do, it's going to transform a lot of the landscape, but so is technology in general. When you walk into restaurants and there's just a kiosk, there's not a human and how the customer adapts to that. But I think COVID was really one of the biggest resets for something we all are only a person that isn't hungry for human interaction, right? For some genuine good interaction, right? One of the things to think about is wherever there's frustration, there's opportunity and gosh, what restaurant do you go into that you aren't frustrated because of the lack of customer service? And what if you go into Howdy and your entire day is without interaction and you get what God has created is the most wonderful form of humans is the biggest problem we all have is we're trying to hide something.

(16:17):

We're trying to be something we're not. And the hardest thing for any man to do is ask for help, people with special needs that have to ask for help all the time, and it's obvious what they're maybe struggling with. And man, that's the gold of it all. You ask the secret sauce, that's it.

Mike Carr (16:34):

Well said. So let me ask each of you a final question is if there's one thing that you'd like to make sure that everybody that listens to this or that's watched this remembers or something they could do to make their life or the life of a special needs person better. I mean, just something that you think is a key takeaway, what would that be?

Jeff Schiefelbein (16:51):

I think if people are ... It's like what can make somebody's life better? I think that for folks who are neurotypical, one of the greatest things you can do is stop talking because I watch that so many of the heroes we get to interact with have something to share, but they're used to being overrun by people filling in that silence, telling them what they think or answering questions for them. And I think one of the greatest gifts we can ever have is encountering people. And so I would just encourage everybody to shut your mouth.

Mike Carr (17:19):

That's a great thought. Tom, what about you?

Tom Landis (17:22):

Man, that's the second great thing. I love also that work was made for man. I thought that was really beautiful. I think exactly just to say what Jeff just said and back it up with his actions and his team's actions. I talked to Kalin, the guy who's worked for us for 10 years. I talked to his mom this morning and just a little bit check in, whatever. And she said, "You know what? I don't know a lot about these guys other than in the last six or nine months since they've been on board, Kaitlin is so much happier. What else matters?" And you could even just coldly apply that to business and say, "If the employees are happy, then business will be better." But man, there's a 360 to that that made me realize, gosh, we're doing the right thing, we're on the right path.

(18:10):

And like Jeff said, gosh, fascinating, if you bring four people into a meeting, the three of us and one person with special needs, how many times will that special needs person absolutely stand there and expect that they will never be talked to during that entire meeting, right? They'll be overlooked. So I think Jeff hit the nail on the head.

Mike Carr (18:26):

I think these are great. I mean, these super points. And Herb Kelleher, who started Southwest Airlines many years ago out of Lovefield in Dallas and a few other Texas cities, it was always interesting his philosophy that he didn't put the customer first. He put the employee first. And I always thought that was such an odd philosophy, but it goes back to listening and it goes back to work is made for man. And it goes back, Tom, to what you said about the joy and the happiness you see, right? If you really shut up and listen, which is so hard to do in today's world with all this noise and the phones going off and this and that, and give those folks that are just naturally more quiet, are more intimidated, or maybe can't even talk. So you're not listening to what they say, you're listening to what their face shows, you're listening to what their body language shows.

(19:15):

You're listening for that smile, that twinkle in the eye, because you have found a job, God made work for man that they get some joy out of. And as a result, they are happier and because they're happier, they do that job better, and because they do the job better, the customers come back again and again. So Herb was not a bozo when he said that. He said, "I know that if my people are fulfilled and get the joy and the excitement and the energy out of coming to work every day, then the customers are going to love hopping on that Southwest Airlines jet." And just like the customers are going to love coming into a howdy homemade and buying another bowl of that ice cream. And then the last thing I want to leave our viewers with that you've both mentioned multiple times, and I think it's such a great reframing, is the word yet.

(20:04):

And the reason the word yet is so powerful is I think it's almost synonymous within Catholicism and in Christian teachings and Judaism is hope, right? There is always hope. And just because you haven't made that step yet or achieved that milestone yet, or you don't feel comfortable having your kiddo going out and working on their own yet or living by themselves yet, that doesn't mean it won't happen in the future. No. So thank you guys so much for your time today and for everybody watching this. If they want to get more information about Howdy and the ice cream you're making, where would you send folks? Or Jeff, if they want to get more information about what you guys are doing, is there a website or a couple websites that you'd want people to look at?

Jeff Schiefelbein (20:44):

You bet. Just come to howdyhomemade.com. You'll be able to check out everything you need there and get in touch with us. And my plug for anybody is if you want Howdy in your hometown or down the street from you, there's a lot of things you can do to make this happen faster in your city. So feel free to reach out to us and we'll talk.

Mike Carr (20:59):

All right. Thank you guys so much. Great, great chat today. See ya.

Jeff Schiefelbein (21:04):

See you.

Tom Landis (21:06):

Thank you.