Consulting from the Couch

The Business of Giving Back

• Steve Goodson • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Some communities grow because a big investor arrives. Others, like Jacksonville, North Carolina, and Onslow County, grow because small decisions, rooted in service, continue to accumulate. 

In this episode of Consulting from the Couch, banking/finance veteran and community builder Scott Riggs joins us to unpack how microloans, partnerships, and servant leadership are powering new jobs and stronger neighborhoods across Onslow County.

We explore the Community Business Loan Fund, a gap-financing model that helps small owners who aren’t “bank-ready” turn good ideas into payroll. Riggs also takes us behind the scenes of Project Frontier, the coalition effort that brought Amazon’s last-mile facility to the community—a blueprint for how readiness and relationships beat luck every time.

From honoring mentors to launching Capital Connections, Scott shares a grounded vision for what real community growth looks like: quality of life, balanced work, and opportunity that lasts.

Run Time: 36 minutes

Capital Connections
Scott Riggs, Founder
https://rsriggsassociates.com/
(910) 340-2306
scott@rsriggsassociates.com

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Consulting from the Couch, where we explore the people, ideas, and leadership shaping our communities and our lives one story at a time. Today's guest is someone who embodies what it means to lead with a purpose. Scott Riggs is not only a seasoned finance professional with more than 35 years of experience, but he is also a tireless community advocate. As the founder of Capital Connection and a key leader in Jacksville and Onslow Counties' economic development efforts, Scott has helped unlock funding, foster local entrepreneurship, and bring game-changing innovations like Project Frontier to life. Welcome, Scott, and thank you for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01:

Steve, I appreciate it, my friend. It's always good to be with you and just thanks for this opportunity to sit down and have a little time on the couch.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. So before we get going, take a couple minutes and tell the listeners about Scott Riggs.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, there's not a whole lot to say other than uh had humble beginnings. Uh grew up in a family of five locally here in Oslo County, up in the northern part of the county, a little place called Richlands, North Carolina. I was very blessed to have you know mom and dad that instilled certain values, introduced us to uh to faith early in our in our lives and uh you know and work ethic as well. I was telling this story to a friend of mine not too long ago, talking about you know, childhood and things like that. And I can remember coming home uh for playing in the yard. I was about 11 years old, and I came home playing in playing in the yard with some friends, and neighbor said, Do you want to earn some money this summer while you're out of school? I'm like, Well, yeah. And so it was uh it was born in tobacco. So I got my first job in tobacco at 11 years old.

SPEAKER_00:

And knowing now, or knowing then what you know now, or vice versa or vice versa, however you say it, working in tobacco is like working in the logwoods, which I had a lot of experience with. Yes, brother. Okay, exactly. But it taught you hard work and it taught you what you probably didn't want to do later on in life.

SPEAKER_01:

It did. It did, absolutely did.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's great. Well, look, man, before we get going and I start asking you the questions, first I want to tell you congratulations, man. You've had a very eventful first half of the year. Uh in April, during National Small Business Week, you're awarded the 2025 Citizenship and Service Award by the Jack Swansley Chamber of Commerce. And later in the month, you received the 2025 United Way Golden Rule Light Keepers Volunteer of the Year Award. So congratulations. Thank you. Kudos, and that's one of the reasons you're on the podcast, besides being my buddy, man. That's one of the reasons you're on the podcast because leadership through volunteerism. Yeah, man, that's awesome. So congratulations.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Thank you. I was I just I've always been taught and still think today that giving back is uh one of the best things that we can do.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's talk about service. You've grown up and you've worked and lived and raised a family here in Oslo County for 30 plus years. What has inspired you and your long-term commitment to volunteerism and specifically we're gonna hone in on a lot of your economic development and community development areas in Jikesville and Oslo County?

SPEAKER_01:

So kind of going back to what uh I was talking about earlier in my you know early in my life, I remember uh there was there was a time, you know, my dad was a was a career banker, and I followed in his footsteps, you know, as a lot of people know here locally. But I can remember the aspect of giving back and just helping others and not seeking any recognition, just just loving people and just serving people. I can remember getting in the car with him. He never really said he never said anything about it. We just we went to uh went to the Pig Weagley grocery store in Richlands and he bought, I don't know, seemed like dozens of bags of groceries. I'm I'm sure it was less than that, but he bought bought groceries and we uh my sister and I, and my brother was was really small then, my sister and I, we rode with him to this humble little house on the back side of town, and he uh he got the groceries out of the back of the car, went up and put them on the porch, knocked on the door and came back and got the car and sat in the car. And I remember seeing a shadow figure just come and and look out and just throw a hand up, and he threw his hand up and we backed out of the driveway and went home and never really said anything about it. But just that act of kindness and just that connection just kind of resonated with with me, and I that's that's kind of how I've I grew up.

SPEAKER_00:

It had to be pretty impactful. You made a great comment about doing it and not looking or seeking recognition or looking for accolades and things of that nature. That's the true spirit of giving and and giving back, right?

SPEAKER_01:

I I I I believe that, yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I totally yeah, I totally agree with you. And for us growing up here in our community, working in the with the businesses that we worked, you in the banking industry, me in the electric utility industry, our businesses were cornerstones of the community, did a lot of things for the community, and it was only natural that between our upbringings and going to work where we worked, uh it was just a natural fit.

SPEAKER_01:

And I agree. And early early in my career, my my first banking job, you the my my manager, my my mentor at the time, he was active in rotary. Another mentor of mine was active in JC's, and JC's was a younger person's organization and uh junior chamber of commerce. And I got involved with JC's right out of college in my in my first in my first um professional role or banking role. And that's I met some really, really good people. And just just their acts of kindness, the way that they just it was it was like it was second nature just to provide help and hope for for kids and for for other people. And uh it just it just kind of carried them all and it resonated with me, and it's just became part of my my lifestyle, and I just that's just part of who I am now.

SPEAKER_00:

That's awesome, man. That's awesome. Let's talk about your role as chairman of the Jack Swanso Economic Development Loan Fund Committee.

unknown:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

What sparked the idea to launch this community business loan fund? And you may need to explain it a little bit. Okay. And what gap was it designed to fill?

SPEAKER_01:

So the community business loan fund is part of what's called the Jacksonville Ons Economic Development Partnership, which is a 501c3 nonprofit. And the the idea really, I've got to give credit to former executive director Mark Sutherland for the for bringing me in and talking to me about the the concept and the idea. And he had had conversations with some other leadership within economic development, and he told me that my name had come up about the potential to uh spearhead that just because of my background, and I started kind of doing my own thing, which we'll I guess we'll talk about later. And so that he brought me in, we talked about it, and I thought it was a great idea. So the the concept, the idea behind the community business loan fund is to do exactly what you said. It's it's a gap filler. It's not meant to compete with banks or other uh finance institutions. It's it's meant to be that platform for folks that maybe need uh some assistance in in starting their business or or or uh expanding their business. Maybe they need uh they're to a point in their business, they're they're ready to buy a location and they don't have they don't have all the down payment, for example. Or they need some equipment, or they need a little bit of working capital to hire some people, that kind of thing. But they're not quite what I would call lender ready or or bank ready. But it's a it's a it's a viable, reasonable situation. And so we take an application, we we have a committee, we review that information, and if it makes sense, we try to find a way to help people access the capital. And I mean it's not meant to be a uh a stop all or to be the you know the main source for people. Um our parameters are a minimum of ten thousand dollars and a and a maximum of seventy-five. We're probably gonna drop that down to fifty, which kind of correlates to a microloan space. But I find that in our area, that that amount of capital helps a lot of small businesses and kind of a good fit for a lot of small businesses. So that's that's in a nutshell kind of what's intended to do and what it's intended to be.

SPEAKER_00:

And with this particular loan fund, the Truist Foundation and Duke Energy, they seeded the loan fund back in 2022. Can you provide an update, maybe, or progress report, maybe how many loans you guys have have made or grants or whatever to date and and where you stand? You kind of just told us potentially about lowering the threshold. Just provide us a little update if you could.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, sure. So the Truist Foundation, very thankful for their existence and their involvement. Again, I give credit to uh to Mark Sutherland and to uh Terry Ashby, who at the time was at Truist here in Jacksonville. And we were able to uh apply for a grant to the Truist Foundation. They they granted the request and just received capital of uh of$100,000, and that money went to three specific credit requests that were all new businesses. One of them is actually in downtown Jacksonville and thriving very, very well. I'd love to see that. We patronize them sometimes. There are a couple others that are doing well themselves. Uh we've had no pushback on any of the the credits that we did, and and all of them went to either secure equipment or to provide working capital, uh, ultimately help people to hire positions. And the so all that money was the with the exception of maybe a couple of thousand dollars, was all deployed in three credits that are all performing and have have had good success stories.

SPEAKER_00:

That's awesome, man.

SPEAKER_01:

And then and then Lauren Wargo from Duke Energy, that that Duke Energy grant, you know, that was in November of last year. And and Steve, that was one of probably the best moments of my adult life was to be a part of a grant situation where we took that money and we broke it up into nine$2,500 grants. And just the applications and the stories behind those applications and just seeing what people are trying to do, what they're trying to accomplish, and for that money to go to such good and to help people maybe get over the hump or get to the next level in their in their entrepreneurial or business journey uh was just was just fabulous. And I I'm very thankful for that opportunity.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to talk about that a little bit because when we think about economic development or job creation, we want to go to a grand scale, right? We want to say we say, hey, we're gonna add a FedEx distribution center and it's gonna bring 300 jobs. And maybe it's because my dad was a small business owner and he was in business for 50 plus years. In my opinion, the foundation of this country, the foundation of Jacksville, Ozlow, North. I mean, the foundation is based on small business.

SPEAKER_01:

You're you're right. I mean, Jacksonville and Oslo County is a is a picture of the national scale. I I'd say 85 plus percent of all hiring and business activity in this country is small business.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And that$2,500 grant that you made to those small businesses, it was probably like$100 million to FedEx or to whomever to fill in the bullets.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, it it could have been. It could have been just a, you know, a lot of times small business just those those little what I'll call droplets of of capital.

SPEAKER_00:

Just that little nudge.

SPEAKER_01:

That's that little nudge can get them to the next level to where they're able to hire the right person. They're able to put in the right piece of equipment to help them go to another level or increase their inventory or uh anything like that that can that gets to yeah, that's a really good way to look at it. I think that little nudge to get them to that point of where it's the maybe sometimes it's the difference between success and failure.

SPEAKER_00:

And we're gonna come back because I think that plays a vital role, what we just talked about and what you're doing now. And we're gonna get to that in a few minutes. Let's talk a little bit more though about I mentioned Project Frontier in the introduction. Tell us a little bit about that project. I know my former employee that I retired from, Jones Onslo, we were involved with that with some grant monies to help with some of the pre-construction, getting the land ready and stuff like that. Sure. But specifically, what was the vision behind the initiative and what was the impact you hoped it had on our community? And it's actually having an impact if you want to talk about what the business is that's coming there.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. So initially, this uh conversation came up as it does a lot of times in economic development circles, to what we've talked about a little bit here before about workforce development, job creation, tax base, things, you know, quality of life kind of stuff. And in this particular instance, you know, Monso County, Jacksonville didn't really have what's referred to in economic development circles as product. And when I refer to product, I'm talking about sometimes you'll go into communities, you'll see these what what's referred to maybe as a shell building, like where maybe an industrial or or building has been built. And it it's in intended to be able to hopefully entice a a business or an industry to relocate uh and bring jobs and bring, you know, bring opportunity to that community. We really didn't have any any product at that time, and so a a building committee was developed and stood up within Jacksonville Onslow economic development. And we started having some conversations about you know some ideas and some things, and it kind of rose from the ashes, and we have a lot of partners within economic development that are local partners that are that are public and private, municipal like governments like the city of Jacksonville, uh, Onslow County, Jones Oslo, EMC, and and others that that are viable, amazing partners to economic development. And so one thing led to another. Uh, we were talking about it. The city had some ideas, um, it just kind of kept evolving. Uh next thing we know, because of the partnerships and the collaboration, uh steps kept being taken. It just evolved. And next thing we knew, there was a very interested party that wanted to come to Jacksonville. They had expansion plans in this part of the world, and it's it's Amazon. And that's a it wound up being an initial 100,000 square feet of facility. It's a it's a last mile facility. If anybody's familiar with with the process, that last mile facility is where product that maybe you've ordered online gets from a larger distribution center, it gets filtered down to a last mile facility and then it gets trucked out from that last mile facility. And there's several of those that are going up in East North Carolina, and Jacksonville was one of those. And if you've been by that area overall Frontier Road in the Williamsburg area, uh there's a lot of building over there now.

SPEAKER_00:

And I joke about that with my daughter. She lives in New York, she's an attorney in New York, and during COVID, she moved from New York. She was still in law school at the time, but she moved from from New York down here. She was able to take law classes online like many students were, and she set up here in the basement actually. But she had become very accustomed to ordering from Amazon. She lived as an in an apartment in downtown New York City, Manhattan. And if she needed toothpaste, she would order toothpaste from Amazon. She would order washing powder from Amazon.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That didn't stop when she moved down here. She kept ordering those things, and literally the FedEx guy or the UPS guy, whoever, was delivering to our house every day. And I joked with her when I told her that this Amazon distribution center was coming here. They looked at data from COVID when you were here and decided to build a facility because it was the Spencer Goodson Distribution Center. So you see this one address? Yes, that is exactly. It's the catalyst for this whole project. Thank you, Spencer. So let's talk about measuring success. So how do you measure success, Roslow County's economic development? Whether it's and I'm just going to throw out job creation, diversity of business ownership, community reinvestment. How do you define success?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think all of those those items play into it, but for me, I think it's it's it's quality of life.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It's what the citizenry is able to experience in regards to job opportunities. It's a well-balanced live-work-play kind of scenario. You choose to live in a community because of several reasons. One, you feel safe. Another one, you feel like you can derive a good living from an income source. You have friends and you have a social life. There's activities, there's things you do recreationally and things like that. And you know, Jacksonville for a for a while has been experiencing what I I refer to as growing pains. You know, we have the the luxury of having a lot of federal dollars that flow here on a monthly basis. That's a lot of communities don't have. And so we've kind of got a baseline to to to build from. And at the same time, we're in between two North Carolina ports, one to the south and one to the to the northeast. And so we're kind of in a conundrum a little bit from a maybe from a transportation perspective. But, you know, all those things are are are looked at, you know, highways, rails, you know, sea, all that stuff gets looked at. And if you really take a take a look at strategically where we're located, there's a reason why Camp Lejeune and and New River Air Station and Camp Johnson and all are strategically placed here. Okay. And the other thing is, you know, we have on the on the private side, I think there's been more of an embracing of the assets that we have and what we have to offer. And what I'm seeing right now from a quality of life perspective, I think it's I think it's manifesting in relationships between city and county partners, corporate partners on the private side, and people that want to see that quality of life be raised in our area. And I and I think it's I think it's happening.

SPEAKER_00:

I would agree. And uh, if you listen to this podcast one time, ten times, you will probably hear me say this in every podcast. You mentioned about partnerships, and it's about relationships. It's about building relationships, whether it's in business or personal lives or whatever. And I think over the last several years, you and I have our our career paths have kind of paralleled each other. Where we are today or where we have been two or three years ago, when you're getting that point, that's not where we were 30 years ago, 25 years ago. I agree. Yeah, and I think that plays a big role in it. Last question about volunteerism and leadership, and then we're going to shift gears about and talk about your business. As a volunteer leader deeply involved in his community, what fuels your motivation? And how do you manage, more importantly, I think I know what fuels your motivation, but how do you manage your time between your business, the volunteer opportunities that you do decide to participate in, and your family?

SPEAKER_01:

The word that comes to mind for me, Steve, is grace, because my wife has a lot of grace. I understand, man. Understand. You know, and and and my kids have have have have grown up in it. You know, just for me, it's it's it's almost like getting up and putting your feet on the floor in the morning. You're you're just thankful that that happened. But just find what what you're passionate about and what what makes you happy and find a way to help other people feel that happiness. You know, I use uh I use an acrostic in in my in my in my life. It's it's interesting to use the word fuel because that's the acrostic that I use is a type of fuel and it's it's it it's coal, C O A L. And under the C I look at communication, uh character and capacity. Um if it wasn't for my calendar, that gives me my capacity because everything has to go in the calendar. If it doesn't go in the calendar, it probably doesn't get done. You know, the the A, I mean the O in in coal is for organization. You're just having a a mindset of putting things in in some type of order so you can try to uh to accomplish those things and be intentional about it and and have a have a desire to to want to make those things kind of happen and and participate. The A stands for attitude. Uh I think you know, I just mentioned mindset. I think it's important to have the right mindset and have an attitude of of servanthood and and being being willing to to to participate and just and take action. And then the L part that that stands for just living. You know, uh we have to we have to live this life every day. And uh what better way than to you not only make sure that your family's taken care of and that your constituents are taken care of in your business or at your job, but your neighbors and and and your friends and people in the community that you hopefully can have a uh a better day today than they had yesterday.

SPEAKER_00:

That's an awesome way to look at it, man. That's awesome. So before we do transition to your business, I'm going off script here and I'm gonna hit you with something.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So a few weeks ago, and you might have mentioned this earlier. A few weeks ago, a good friend of yours, a former boss of yours, and I would say probably a mentor of yours, Buddha Howard passed away. Can you talk to me about the influence that Buddha had not only on your career but also on your life?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you you you got me. I I got you then. You got me into feels there, man. I know, man. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit you about this. It's okay. It's okay. No, that's good. I mean, Buddha, Buddha Howard was was one of a kind. He he was kind of quiet, uh, but he himself was a was a mover and a shaker. He was the kind of guy that was was behind the scenes. He didn't want to be in the forefront, he didn't want to have the limelight on him, he just he was just a doer. And he would he was a facilitator. He would, you know, he had connections and he'd make the phone calls or he'd show up or whatever the case may be. But yes, he definitely was a a very, very strong professional mentor to me. He gave me the opportunity to make a transition in Jacksonville at a time that was appropriate for for me and my family. He was a his leadership style was he was a very good listener. He was just one of those people that you really enjoyed being around and he he carried a big stick, but it it it it didn't have to have a lot of noise and a lot of sound to it, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, I know what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, and uh I uh I really feel for his family. You know, Buddha was was instrumental in economic development probably in that transition time, uh 2013, 2014, 2015. Uh he was heavily involved in rotary. Uh he lived by the rotary motto, and it was evident in his family. I had the the privilege of being able to attend his his his funeral service down in Southport a couple of Fridays ago. And it was just the outpouring of love from that community for that man was uh was amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

You can say a lot about somebody, and you know, when I leave this earth, it's pretty simple, but the thing I can you could talk a lot about Buddha, you can say this about that, you can about whatever, but and the way I would say that Buddha was just a good dude, man. He was just a good he was just a good dude.

SPEAKER_01:

That's that's a good summary of Buddha Howard. He's just a good dude.

SPEAKER_00:

He was just a good dude, man.

SPEAKER_01:

So that hits the nail on the head for him.

SPEAKER_00:

So anyway, let's transition, shift gears, and we'll talk about your business. Capital Connections started in May of 21. What motivated you to transition into the commercial lending consultant space and how do those three and a half decades of banking continue to shape your approach today?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so after I transitioned away from corporate world and out of out of banking itself, a few weeks after, um, I actually was starting to get a few phone calls from some former clients just asking questions about processes and certain things about how to go about approaching scenarios. And um and I just told them, I said, Well guys, I'm I'm not there anymore. So I I I really all I can tell you was is what I would do and and and what my experience tells me in that situation. And I had one client in or former client in particular that needed something and it just wasn't gonna be a fit uh at the bank. So I made uh I had some other connections that I made over over my career, and I reached out to one of those connections and he said, Yeah, I I'm I'm pretty sure I thought I can help him. And uh he was in the same space that I've gotten into, which is commercial debt brokerage and equity brokerage and and that type of thing. And he took the client and uh I introduced them and made the connection and things just went from there and it went out to be in uh a very good situation for both of them. And so the guy that I refer I referred to, the broker I referred the business to, he called me uh a couple of weeks later and he said, He said, Scott, he said, that was a that was a really good referral. He said, He said, Why don't you do this? He said, or what are you doing now? And I told him that I really wasn't doing anything. He said, You would be really good at this. He says, You've got the experience, he says, you know what to look for. He said, I I just I think about it. So that's what I did. I started thinking about it, talked to my wife, and we uh we birthed capital connections, and so that's what we do. We we focus on commercial lending consultation and commercial debt brokerage and equity placement services. And over the last four years, we've had the opportunity to build multiple, multiple relationships nationwide. We've actually gone international now.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh we're actually working on you and I were talking about that last week.

SPEAKER_01:

We're actually working on a couple of projects that are international now. And just to build those relationships and continue, just using the process that I mentioned earlier, my coal process, and you know, setting myself up every day with you know, I start my day out with a devotion every day and get my attitude right first and then and then and then attack my day in a a bit at the time. And it's it's just turned into something that I I never I never really thought that it would, and I'm I'm very thankful.

SPEAKER_00:

In four years, I know you've got some great stories. I know you would have some great success stories from the bank as well, but pick one, if you can, just one. Tell me a nice success story over the last four years, man. Something that we talked about in those$2,500 mini grants or whatever, something that just made you feel good.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I'm sure there is.

SPEAKER_01:

But one that just kind of comes to mind that I'll just uh they say we're name remain nameless to protect the innocent. But there's a local entrepreneur. She has she's just the epitome of of a dynamo. She is one of those types of personalities, she'll she'll get in the crowd with the bull, she'll look at the bull in the eye, and the bull comes at her, she just holds her hands out, grabs him by the horns, and just takes over. And in the last couple of years, I've seen her you know, her story kind of is is a good one. She she's a former Marine, uh, that's how she got to the area. She uh you know went through the COVID period and she had gotten into remodeling homes and doing trying to do a little house flipping and things like that. And uh she learned along the way, of course, COVID didn't help, but you know, when she would try to reach out to subcontractors or people to get help her get through the process, she was having a hard time getting people to show up on time and get things done the way she wanted them. So that take the bull by the horns meant. Mentality, she went and got a general contractor's license on her own. And she has since from that point, she started building homes. She has gotten into building her own commercial real estate. She's an entrepreneur. She's helping people right now, today, feel better by giving back to them and allowing them to use her facility to help them. She is she's just an up and coming and she she doesn't stop. And to have been a part of helping her along the way in some consultation and some capital resources and just helping just being a partner coming alongside her and helping her navigate the process will always be something that'd be special.

SPEAKER_00:

Kind of wrapping this thing up, what's one practical way that they can get involved and make a tangible impact in their community?

SPEAKER_01:

I think we talked about it a little bit earlier, but yeah, there are organizations and there's there's there's ways. I mean you can certainly Google search or Bing Search or whatever type of browser you use. You can go and look for for things to do. But you know, if it's faith-based, there's always something in the community that can be done through through uh church affiliated or faith-based organizations. Yeah, if you're you know, I I think finding going to find something that you're passionate about and you and you want to be involved with, you know, like if it's youth sports, I mean you know, there's look at this community from what it was. We were talking about fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years ago, what it was and what it is now. You know, youth sports has exploded. I mean, we've gone from just like baseball and basketball and soccer to now there's volleyball, there's there's you know, there is the cross, there's all there's all kinds of things that you can do to help, you know, and kids are always looking for mentors and and and they're always looking for volunteers to help in that situation. United Way is another one. There's there's what's called Volunteer Onslow. You can sign up for for volunteering through that. And if, you know, there's there's just a multitude of things that you can do, but I think it's just being intentional and just looking. If you look and ask questions, you're if especially if it's in the volunteer space, you're gonna get an answer of yeah, you can come help us and we'll find a way to make it work.

SPEAKER_00:

Volunteers are always needed, but I think you make a tremendously great point about something that you're passionate about. If you're passionate about it and you volunteer in that space that you're passionate about, people will see that.

SPEAKER_01:

They will.

SPEAKER_00:

People will see, hey, he's excited to be here, hey, she's excited to be here, as opposed to potentially just checking a box.

SPEAKER_01:

I I agree. And and it's you know, to see uh a kid's face light up because you know, you were there, you were present, you were, you know, because you you took action and man took that step to be involved, to see that that family or that individual be able to get connected with resources that they need to help them move to the next chapter of their life, whatever the case may be. I mean, that that stuff is priceless and it's in it's invaluable and it's it's very rewarding, and I hope people take advantage of of doing stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, Scott, this was awesome, man. I appreciate it a bunch. I appreciate you. It's always good to see you and be with you. I just appreciate the time you've given me. Listen, Scott Riggs, he's a clear example of how business expertise and community service can come together to create real lasting change. He's proving that volunteer leadership and strategic thinking go hand in hand. So if today's episode has inspired you to get involved or invest in your local community, take some of Scott's advice that I he didn't say on the podcast here, but I did some research and I read it somewhere. Start where you are, use what you know, and always find a way to serve.

SPEAKER_01:

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I read that when I was researching you. So, real quickly, I do want you if there's small businesses in the community in the area and there they may be in need of your service, this is your little shameless plug, 30 seconds, man. So take it.

SPEAKER_01:

I sure I appreciate that. So if uh you're a business owner and you're in in need of some some capital, the bank's not you're not where you need to be with the bank just yet, uh, reach out to us. Um we are uh on online at www.rsriggsassociates.com. Uh I can be reached at 910-340-2306. You can also find us on Facebook at Capital Connections, and we're on LinkedIn at Capital Connections as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and we'll put all that stuff in the show notes when the podcast comes out. So Scott, listen, thank you again, man, and listeners, thank you. We appreciate you taking the time to listen to this episode of Consulting from the Couch. And be sure to follow us by going to blcconsultinglc.com and leave a quick review or share it with someone who also loves to hear just about great leadership stories in our communities. So until next time, I'm Steve Goodson and talk soon.