Welcome to the Connection: Partnering Public & Private Entities

🎙️ Episode Title: "Bridging Sectors: The Debut of 'The Connection'"

Welcome to the inaugural episode of "The Connection: Partnering Public & Private Entities," where hosts Mary Scott Nabers and Marshall Macomber delve into the transformative world of public-private partnerships (PPPs). In this insightful discussion, they explore how PPPs are pivotal in tackling some of the nation's most pressing challenges.

🔍 Key Highlights:

1. Introducing 'The Connection' Podcast: Discover the mission and vision behind our new podcast series. It's more than just a conversation; it's about creating a collaborative space for public and private entities.
2. The Power of PPPs: Understand why public-private partnerships are crucial for infrastructure development, technological advancement, and more. Our hosts discuss real-world examples and the impact of these collaborations.
3. Launching 'Government Market News': Get an inside look at our newly launched platform designed to streamline connections between contractors and public officials. It's a one-stop hub for news, opportunities, and resources in government contracting.
4. Expert Insights: With years of experience in government contracting, Mary and Marshall share their expertise, offering valuable tips and strategies for navigating the complex marketplace.
5. Interactive Community Building: Be part of our journey! We invite listeners to engage, provide feedback, and suggest topics for future episodes.

🌉 Join Us:
Tune in to "The Connection" for an educational and enlightening journey into the world of public-private partnerships. Whether you're a contractor, a public official, or simply interested in government contracting, this podcast is your gateway to understanding and harnessing the potential of PPPs.

📆 Stay Connected:
Subscribe to our podcast and follow 'Government Market News' for the latest updates and insights in the world of public and private sector partnerships.

#PublicPrivatePartnership #GovernmentContracting #TheConnectionPodcast 🌐💼🤝

Transcript

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai - Go Unlimited to remove this watermark) Welcome everybody to the Connection Podcast. I'm Marshall McCumber, your host, your co-host here from ThinkP3 in Washington, DC. And I've got my co-host, Mary Scott Neighbors. Mary, how are you? Marshall, I'm doing good. And gee, I'm glad we're gonna get to do this first podcast. I know we've got, so this is an exciting new initiative. I think of Strategic Partnerships, Inc. We are gonna talk about all the things, obviously, that Mary and I are particularly interested in, one of which is public-private partnerships and this government contracting marketplace in this incredibly exciting time that we as a nation, anybody in government, anybody involved with government, there's been no time like this, arguably, in our nation's history, that's bringing more people of more different backgrounds together. And I think in this podcast, we're gonna talk about the players, the people, and the process for getting this done, because I think that's what's most important to a lot of the folks who are watching this. Mary, you're the CEO and President of Strategic Partnerships. It's your firm. You launched a new platform, Government Market News. Why? Why Government Market News? Why now? Marshall, I cannot tell you how many people have asked me that question, from family members to friends to sometimes even people on the SBI team. Why are we doing this? This is killing us. But, you know, it's because so many of this team came out of the executive ranks of government. And we also have a wonderful, incredibly good research team here. And so we have a vision into the future. We stand with one foot in the private sector and one foot in the public sector. And when we look out across the future, we see that the collaboration between private sector contractors and public officials is critical in so many ways. We'll be more competitive globally as a nation if we have good collaboration. Taxpayers will be better off. Government will be able to benefit from the expertise and the experience of private sector firms. So we're hoping that this news platform that we've developed will become the connector. And our plan is every day to have beneficial news for private sector contractors, and then the same type of beneficial news for public officials. And I can talk more about that, but that's the objective of this whole effort that we've put into launching government market news. You know, I used to be, I mean, I think the time is absolutely right. And I know one of my hopes coming out of this podcast is to help make this real. You can Google stuff, you can learn stuff coming out of the federal government, state government, local government, but how do we get that together? It's people. It's people. You talk about the team at SPI, I'm in DC. It takes so many people of such great intellect, I think, to make this real. I also think it makes it really interesting. I came off of Capitol Hill. I was a longtime chief of staff to a member of Congress. And, you know, I got in this business, this world of public-private partnerships, because I looked down the road and I thought, there is no way we can solve the nation's biggest challenges. We don't have enough public sector funding to do it, so we're gonna need the private sector equity capital. We need the know-how in that spirit of partnership that you talked about. I just, you think about decarbonization, you think about broadband, you think about some of the geopolitical challenges we're facing right now. We gotta work together to build this country and rebuild it. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, there are so many companies who have wonderful new technology, all kinds of wonderful solutions. But what happens is they get into this U.S. government marketplace, which just happens to be the largest market in the world, and they can stumble around for years, literally, because this culture, the processes, the procedures, the ethics, the rules, everything are different in the government marketplace. And so our hope is to make it easy for them to come in and make it even easier for public officials to recognize, oh, we need this funding or we need this technology, and then to be able to hear each other and find out whether or not there's a good partnership here or not. So that'll be part of our objective. There's a lot of barriers to entry for companies, right? That have never done this before. So many, so many. And it's interesting because companies from all over the world are trying to get in to the U.S. marketplace. And it is the most competitive also market in the world, because government buys everything. There's nothing you can name that they don't need at some time or another. And government isn't influenced by inflation or anything. And so this marketplace is only going to grow. And so we have a lot of international firms understand this marketplace. But by the same token, we also have a lot of small companies enter this marketplace and become wonderful subcontractors in the beginning. And then as their companies grow, they become brilliant contractors, but they all need help. Give me an example. As I think about the definition of infrastructure, when you say, what's our infrastructure to kind of the average person on the street, generally, I think people would say, well, it's roads and bridges, right? Roads and bridges. But- But it's so much more. It's almost everything. It's roads and bridges, but it's our school buildings. It's our utilities, public and private. It's broadband, it's water. And the differences about how to, who owns it, who takes care of it, who maintains it, who renews it. There's so much there. Give me an example, Mary. Somebody picks up the phone, calls you at the office. Maybe they did today or yesterday or this week or last week, and they've got some kind of technology or some sort of solution they have. They say, Mary, we need to get this in the hands of so-and-so. Are they saying, we need to get this in the hands of the federal government? We need to get it in the state of Texas, state of California, or do we need to get it in the city of Miami? What do they say to you? So they say something like that. And my first reaction is this. Let's talk about what is your offering? What do you have for government? And then let us look at it, because as I said earlier, we all came out of this massive government marketplace. And let us decide, where do you need to take this? What jurisdiction's gonna have the greatest and most immediate needs? What states are going to be the best for you to consider? And how does your marketing look? And are you registered and certified and have all of the credentials ready to sell to government? Do you have any references? And if you don't, that's okay, but let's take your private sector references and mold them into something that a public official can understand best. So let me go back to infrastructure just a moment, because every day of the world, I explain to someone, infrastructure is not just roads and bridges. It's technology. It's like you say, it's water, but it's vertical construction. It's student housing on university campuses. It's affordable housing in cities everywhere. So infrastructure is whatever the foundational systems are that let us survive as citizens in a prosperous world. I mean, take it to your point about housing. Every country, if you're in Austin, I'm in DC, every major city that is across this country and place around the world are having some sort of housing crisis. And we saw, right? We saw just, what was it? In the last week or week before, the Biden administration came out with a whole toolkit to help cities with this office to residential conversion. Well, anybody who's done some reading, that's a very complex undertaking. And it's probably going to take some public funding. It's probably gonna take some public know how to make this happen because a private developer can't just come in and solve this. Otherwise they would have done it. That's where I think where the partnership of this comes in, where you've got to have people that understand both sides, because if it's just a private developer, I'm coming here to turn a profit. We want to get into this thing and get out of it. So it's a very, it doesn't sound very good to your public official, elected official, who's got constituents to serve. They've got a community to think about. And that's where I think the magic of this partnership comes together, is bringing both of that together. And I think in there is a way to win some of this as well. Yes, and the sad thing about it is, is that there's more money now flowing than ever before, ever, ever. Trillions of dollars are available. But if you look at who's getting those federal funds, some states are doing much better than others. Some cities are doing so much better than others. And so you have to look and think, well, how do we help those others? And you can't just say, go look at this program on a federal website, because it's going to take forever to someone to dig down, to find everything they need to know. Here's the program, here's the timelines, here's the rules, here's how you do the application process. And then they still need to know, how do I get more competitive? So this platform is going to make all of that information available in very simple terminology. And we think that will help public visionary leaders move this infrastructure faster. One of the things I hope we get out of the platform and through this podcast, is we get a two-way dialogue going on here. We've got some great, I don't know if I should talk about some of our guests coming up here in the future, but we're going to talk about things like vertiports, for example. I mean, fascinating. Talking about disruption in the airspace. But what I would love us to see ultimately, eventually is people reaching out to us, whomever it is and say, I want to talk about such and such, or I have a question about this. I think one thing to emphasize to your point, as things change, no question is a bad question. And it's better to ask the basics. And I think even you and I, we have to constantly kind of remind people, what are the basics? What is a partnership? What is entailed? Like your point about the processes of government. We got to go back to the basics. And I think that is how we educate ourselves and we educate others, right? Absolutely. And we are soliciting input from anyone who got on this site. We have been shocked because we've had so many unique visits to this site. I mean, thousands and thousands every day. And we're shocked by that. But what we want to say to every one of them is, tell us what you like, tell us what you need, send your news here. These podcasts are gonna start next week. And if you're watching this one, we're the first. But who do you want to hear from? What do you want us to talk about? That kind of input is what will make this connection totally unique and better than we could ever make it alone. I'm really hoping we're gonna have a chance to bring some government agency sponsors, a project, I wanna have them talk about their project. Right, it could be a redevelopment downtown. Let's talk about that Marshall, because yes, we're going to start saying to public officials, you have a project you wanna launch and you don't maybe have all the funding or all the expertise, come on a podcast with us and let's talk about your project. Because as we give you some ideas and some input and some guidance, we'll be helping all of the other public officials who are listening to the podcast. And if you need investment, you're gonna have a lot of people listening and who want to invest. But moreover, we're going to have contractors who are going to become aware of your project and they're going to compete for it. And the more competition you have, the better solutions you're gonna get. So these podcasts are meant to go both ways. And focus, focus the conversation. We're all overwhelmed and inundated by information from every side, every day of the week, 24 hours a day, all the time. But I hope, again, we're gonna bring this in and make it real, have a dialogue and make a project into something that people can understand to build a narrative around. And I think it's gotta be a narrative that meets the need of that community. I think that's the key difference, isn't it? From your average contractor might come in the door, and say, well, I have a product or a solution that helps a company do such and such. When you do that for a government, we really have to tell the story so that elected official ensures that if government is gonna purchase that solution or they're gonna build a project, a transit project, housing project, water, broadband, that it meets the need of that community. And that is a story. It's a story they're telling, right? It's a story. And I had a call just today from a company that is working with a city to launch a project. And the private sector company said, the city wants us to bring funding. And we don't understand all of these different funding sources. And we are smart. We have CPAs on our team, but we don't understand. This is so different. And so when you look at a lot of these funding programs that are available now, they do require private sector investment. That's a whole new concept to mandate it. So I spent a lot of time trying to explain that. I'm hoping that on podcasts, we can explain it once or twice and reach hundreds of people and not have to do it one on one on one. And I'm also hoping that some of the media may learn from this, because I get a lot of calls from the media saying, we don't understand this funding either. Is it good for taxpayers or not? And it is, but only if you understand how it works. Tell me one of the key things you say to almost anybody who calls you that wants to work with government. What are the one or two or even three things they must keep in mind, especially with your perspective having sat in that chair as a public official? Right. Well, what I start off by saying is, this is the largest market in the world. It is extremely competitive and it is political. And that's a whole different culture. So you have to understand transparency is critical. Ethics, you've got to follow the rules. You've got to follow the procedures and you have to understand, we even go into, you know, in depth saying virtual presentations are the norm now since COVID. And if you're going to do one, you've probably only got 30 minutes. So four minutes is all you can have to talk about your company. Now get immediately to what will your solution do for this public entity? And once they hear that, stop and let them ask questions because they will have questions. And so it's brevity, it's good messaging, it's transparency, it's being right up front. Here's how we can help you. You know, we're about a year, depending on when we put this up live, about a year out from the presidential election in 24 November, 2024. I'm building on your point about politics. Politics, right? Politics plays a role in all this. And sadly, I think there are a lot of companies out there, maybe even some nonprofits who might say, I don't want anything to do with government because they're afraid of politics. And we all understand politics gets really ugly at times, not always. Seems like the loudest voices get more of the coverage than a lot of the good women and men out there serving trying to make a difference in their communities. But politics, politics. I was just on Capitol Hill just about an hour ago. And so that's definitely politics up there. When you say politics, Mary, what does that mean to you? What politics? Well, it's a political environment. And so what you really have to understand right up front is you don't take a solicitation, something you're trying to sell the government to an elected official. If that elected official is smart, and most of them are, they will run from that. They could end up in prison trying to negotiate with you. The people inside government run government and make recommendations to elected officials. So these are some of the political issues that you've got to understand. Government, political government is a very structured bureaucracy for all kinds of reasons. It's public money. It's public service. It's citizens you are trying to serve and do right by. So that's the first thing we make all of our companies that we work with understand, is understand the politics. It's easy to, you know, I talk to a lot of people say, well, there's just too many regulations. The market's too slow. I don't wanna deal with it. Why don't they just make it go faster and all that? And I've always said for my many years in government and since, for every regulation, for every law, and specifically every regulation, whether it's federal, state, local, there is usually a story behind that. Oftentimes, there's even a tragedy behind it. And it is each one of those regulations is there for usually for a good reason, not always, usually. And that's why understanding it, we talk about in the P3 world, the world of public-private partnerships, we've gotta have a good, a statutory framework for all this to work. And I think that's what you're getting at. The process with working with an agency on a particular project, no matter its size, but there's also the larger, if you've got a city, you've got state government, you've got those stakeholders, stakeholders, and then the federal government, which of course, I'm in DC, I think a lot about the federal government. Federal government, which provides, I think you said earlier today, what was the word you said, vitality. It provides so much vitality to the state and local infrastructure market because of the funding, because of all these financing programs that now exist. Really, I gotta think the successful people, and I've seen them in this world that you live in and I live in, are those which understand local government, state government, federal government, and can put that together as a compelling narrative. Anyway, I think that's, again, that's where I think this educational communications platform we've put together here, I'm hoping is gonna help demystify that and maybe even increase people's confidence to get in this marketplace. Right. Marshall, I literally grew up in government. My dad was a mayor off and on for two decades. My late husband, Len, was in the legislature 14 years. And then I was a statewide officeholder for 10 years. So I totally understand this market space, but I find that really, really intelligent people who have not lived in it, it is foreign, it is strange. And sometimes they really do criticize it, but it is what we've got. It's the best we've got. And everything we can do to make it better, we should do. So I know we're winding down. Let me just say one more time and I'll let you close, but we want input from people who are hearing these podcasts and who are going to this site. So help us make this a good thing for the world. Reach out to us. I'm telling you, this is an exciting, entrepreneurial, innovative time in the world of government and the world of the private sector and the intersection of the two. Get involved here, talk to Mary, talk to me. Let's have a discussion and a dialogue. Let's make this real. Because those that are getting involved right now, not only are you gonna benefit, but you're gonna make a lasting impact in your community and in your state, in this country. And I think in a time like this, we're all looking at screens all the time and wondering what's real and what's not. This is real and it's exciting and we need everybody in here. So I look forward to this dialogue. Watch this space in the future. We're gonna have some great podcast guests coming up here soon. We're gonna touch on everything and I hope to inspire more and more people to come to the site and watch this. I just think it's gonna be great. Mary, any other closing comments for today? Thanks for joining us today. We'll be back. Thanks for joining us. And we'll see you all next time.