The Real Work Behind Economic Development | Shad Burner & Lucas Presson

Why do some communities grow, attract investment, and create opportunity—while others struggle to keep people and jobs?

In this episode of On The Surface, Seth Stevens sits down with Shad Burner, CEO of SEMO REDI, and Lucas Presson, Business Development Director at SEMO REDI, to break down what economic development really is and why it matters to the future of Southeast Missouri.

Shad and Lucas share their unique career journeys into economic development before diving into the challenges and opportunities facing the region. From workforce development and site selection to regional collaboration and population growth, they explain the work happening behind the scenes to help communities thrive.

They explore:

• What economic development actually means and how it's measured
• Why population growth and GDP are key indicators of a healthy region
• How communities attract new businesses and support existing employers
• The role workforce development plays in long-term economic success
• Why regional collaboration is critical for competing on a larger stage
• What site selectors look for when evaluating locations for new investments
• How Southeast Missouri can differentiate itself and compete for future growth
• The leadership challenges of bringing diverse organizations together around a common goal

From attracting businesses and developing talent pipelines to building stronger communities, this conversation highlights a simple truth: economic growth doesn't happen by accident—it requires vision, collaboration, and consistent effort.

If you're interested in business, leadership, workforce development, or the future of Southeast Missouri, this episode offers valuable insights into what it takes to build a region where people and businesses want to stay, grow, and invest.

Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome back to On the Surface. I'm your host, Seth Stevens, and this week I'm joined by Shad Burner and Lucas Presson, both with SEMO Ready, which is an organization that focuses on regional economic development. Shad and Lucas have a plethora of knowledge. So we cover what economic development is at a fundamental level and what it's like leading a board of partners that don't report to you in any way. But first, if you haven't already, show some love to the show and go follow, rate, and review our show on whatever listening app you're using and talk about it with your friends and on social media to help get the word out. All right, let's get into it. So I thought it'd be interesting to start with your guys' backgrounds and how you wound up in economic development. So I want to hear from both of you, but whoever wants to go first.

SPEAKER_04 1:02

Yeah, I'll jump in first because I've been in it longer. Um, so Shad Berner, and I'm the CEO of CMO Ready, but I've been in economic development for uh longer than a decade now. I started um in the area, I was vice president of the Cape Chamber and had some touches in economic development. Left that for a different role in town, but uh economic development never really left kind of my blood. So a couple years after that, I took an opportunity to join the Missouri Department of Economic Development. So I spent five years there, kind of growing up through the ranks and doing a variety of things. I'd uh oversaw the Southeast region and then um was on the leadership team, did a lot of cool stuff. I don't know how much you want to know about it all, but I I was involved in vaccine rollout for the state. I uh had about a half a billion dollars in ARPA funds that I was responsible for um standing up a team and distributing those funds and creating some new grant programs. And so five years there at the state and uh still living in Cape the whole time. So I was commuting back and forth and um ultimately that was just not something I wanted to do forever. And so I I left the state and joined Kit Bond Strategies, um, which does economic development lobbying and consulting and other stuff. And so the first client I had with KBS Group was CMORedi. And so I've been working for kind of both those organizations for the last three years doing those things. And and Simo Ready is a, you know, it's an it's an offshoot. It it the organization predecessor was Magnet, and that was run by the Cape Chamber. So when I was at the Cape Chamber, I worked in Magnet for a while for a little over three years. And so when I came back to support it, it had changed names, but it was still the same organization with the same funding at first when I got there. And so I had some history with that organization. So yeah, I mean, ultimately, if you piece that all together, 10-ish years total in the industry um was on I've been on the Missouri Economic Development Council board of directors, pretty engaged in the industry.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Yeah, that makes sense. You and I had talked before, and I guess I didn't remember us talking about Cape Chamber, but I learned about it not through not even through us talking recently, but other positions and boards I was on, and your name came up and I was like, oh, I didn't even know you were on Cape Chamber. Um but yeah, so we when you were when you were working at the Missouri uh level, so commuting for you would have been to Jefferson City, right? Yeah, yeah. Which is a good haul from Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:44

And and I was pretty much there when legislators were there. So it's three and a half hours at least, I mean, basically every week for five months. Yeah. And then spend a couple days up there. And then I was there out of session quite a bit as well. I mean, we had I had a team of 20.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:02

And um nine grant programs to get out the door pretty quickly. So um had a really good team that I got to hire from scratch. So I started the team, uh, had a great deputy who's located in Jeff City, and that helped. Oh, yeah. Once she got settled and she took over once I left. I mean, she was way better at this than I I was, which is the goal, right? That is the goal of hiring a team that's better than you. I'm good at, you know, they give me some crazy assignment and I'll go figure it out. But you know, there's gonna be a way better people than me to make it function.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:33

Uh which may be part of the thread that we pull on today. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Fair, yeah. We'll get that. That's a great segue to Lucas. Lucas, what's your background?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

So I actually came from a media background from this area, did my undergrad and MBA at Southeast and spent 14 years in media. Uh, was with Rust Communications for over 14 plus years from news roles to running the agency for a couple years to assistant publisher and then uh also general manager. Uh the last year plus I was also uh overseeing the commercial printing operation uh there. So I I I tell people I think I touched about every department there during that 10 year. I I never printed a newspaper, but they're nice that I came close. Yeah. Um, but uh had a great run, um uh uh led a number of different events from SEMO Balder Wars to a bunch of other things. Um and about a year and a half uh ago, there's the this opening for a new position at CMOReddy. Um and you know, Shad and I are both from Southeast Missouri and want to see the area succeed. Uh and uh in fact, I was uh publisher of B Magazine, the regional business publication at the time, and Simo Ready was running an ad in B Magazine for this position, and I thought, huh, that's interesting. Yeah. So I texted Chad and said, why don't we talk and see, you know, what is this? Is this interesting? And so I went through the process and then and uh ended up working out. And so uh been with Simo Ready now for about a year and a half. Yeah. Um, and um, yeah, love it. A lot of good stuff going on.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah. So what do you um like how do you describe your position to people?

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Yeah. So uh probably about 70% of my role is talking with existing businesses. Uh and and we think about it uh, you know, economic development in the sense of uh probably 80% of of economic development is gonna be how do we help our existing businesses grow and expand? And so I'll spend time talking with local businesses on uh what are their opportunities, what are their challenges, making sure that they know about some of the state's uh flagship incentives for uh job growth, uh training, um, and then uh connecting folks with with different resources as well. So uh are they having challenges from a utility standpoint? Is it training resources? Um, is it an infrastructure issue? Uh and so really it's just going out and talking with people and listening and hearing kind of what what are the issues that are going on, uh, and then making sure that they're getting connected with the right resources and trying to connect those dots on those issues. And so we've been able to help a number of folks. Uh, I mean, the the businesses are the ones that are doing the hard work. Really, we're just kind of there to make sure they're getting connected. And so many times you talk to companies and they don't know about you know X, Y, Z resources that exist. And so we really just want to make sure that they know what exists and and how we can help them. Um and uh and so that's that's really most of what I'm I'm doing. The other part of it is on the attraction side, which I know we'll get into. Yeah. Uh, and then on helping startups from an entrepreneurship stage as well. So yeah. Um that's really what takes up most of my time.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah. Retaining and growing existing businesses and then recruiting new ones. Absolutely. So Shad doesn't do anything, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Oh, he he has his he has his own things that he's going after.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

I didn't even ask you, but what does that look like from for Simo Ready, like for you on a regular basis?

SPEAKER_04 8:03

Yeah, so you know, when it when Lucas came on, the reason we structured that position is because it was very easy to define what needed to happen there. We knew exactly what we needed to be doing to recruit and retain businesses, and it was easy to put a job description around it and feel very comfortable that we were going to get value for the community for paying for that position and value to go out and find somebody really good because we knew it was worthwhile. So what I have done is tried to then look at what's the next thing we can build out and put some structure around. So for me, um, when I when I started, and if you back this up a little bit, I mean, we had uh six private investors and five public investors when I came on three years ago as a consultant, and now we have about 20 to 25 private investors. So a lot of my role was we need to get more people around the table talking about this and being involved in economic development. So that was the first part. So we we built the investor group, we built the budget, we built the strategic plan, and then now we're starting to pick off that strategic plan. So Lucas is doing that piece of it. The pieces that we're now thinking about that we knew we needed to get to is um how can we impact positively the workforce situation throughout the region? Um so we're doing uh an apprenticeship initiative, and I could talk a little more about that. Um, we're looking at technical training in the region. Um and also the other big piece of all this is regionalism. Um one of the reasons there was a shift from the old organization magnet to the new one seem already was that we just don't play very well together as a region. When I was at the state, I would see one community come up, another community come up, maybe people in the same community come up, and there was no alignment, no support for one another, a lot of regional infighting. And so this organization was always designed to try to address that. And so now that Lucas is doing the good work he's doing for recruitment, there's some things that we can do together as a region. And so I'm really focused on how do we build that regional approach? How do we build those workforce tools? And and what can we then package into that next full-time role that can go on and take it from beyond just this vision to actually delivering and executing like Lucas is doing.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah. No, that's good. I'd say one of the things that that comes up from these, what we call our BRE visits, our business retention expansion visits is yeah, it's connecting folks with resources, but we're also hearing what are those opportunities and challenges. And so after a while, you start uh connecting the dots. And so you hear enough things in a row that also helps inform a strategy of like, okay, enough people in a certain field are saying the same thing. How can we help you know inform that next decision of what do we need to do? For sure. So whether it's on technical training, for example, you know, how do we help figure out um getting that next piece of the pie? So we need good K through 12, which we you know, we do. We have good K through 12, we have good CTC, great with Southeast Missouri State. How do we expand the technical training piece for the next level of training? Yeah. Um, for not only the entry level or what we would call like the 1A level of training, but how do we get the 1B? So how can we get those $30 an hour to $35 an hour employees that have that next level of training uh to do some of these jobs, whether it's HVAC or um uh type of of of of um uh you know car um mechanics, sure, yeah. You know, um like more certifications, yeah, more certifications and so forth. And so that really kind of helps figure out, you know, what do we need to be going after to help fill that piece of the pie so our employers can hire the folks that they need um you know to to do the jobs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Makes sense. What how would you guys describe I mean, I think you've been talking about it a little bit, but how would you describe economic development like two people?

SPEAKER_04 12:25

Yeah, I'll I'll start. To me, um we have to be growing the population and GDP of the region. That is economic development. I mean, nothing else matters. Now, obviously, we we measure ourselves against a variety of things as we are trying to reach toward that mission. But at the end of the day, Southeast Missouri, an 18th county region, has had population decline over the last 20 years and we got to do some different things than we've done. And it's not easy. There's no easy answers to any of this, but um how can we create the conditions, whether that's workforce pipelines or transportation infrastructure so that businesses want to grow and expand here? How do we then tell that story to those site selectors and businesses and try to get them to come take a look here? Because when those jobs come and and and we should get into what kind of jobs we're recruiting because there's there's primary movers in the market, I think, that import dollars into the region, which is what you want to do, right? So if we go recruit a um you know, uh your next retail store, that's great. We really need that in the region, but mostly that's local dollars staying local. It's just recirculating in the economy. Now, if we go and recruit the next expansion at Procter and Gamble, they're shipping their goods all over the country and all those dollars are coming back into the region in the way of payroll and uh construction dollars to build that plant. So there's there's a lot more money that comes into the system. And when that happens, the retail follows that money. So when there's enough of that happening and population growth, you'll get the next retail establishment. So for us, we're pretty laser focused on those primary economic drivers that's going to increase the amount of GDP in our system locally.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

I'd say on the entrepreneurship side, we're doing a couple things now. You know, one of the early projects I worked on was a uh business startup checklist. So someone comes to town and maybe they're just a really new startup. They haven't started a business before, or maybe they have some experience with it, but they don't know like what permits do they need to do. We wanted to create something, whether you're in Cape Girardeau or Jackson or Scott City, that made it really clear and cut and straightforward on what do I need to do to get my business started? And it's really less focused on the nuts and bolts of operating the business, although there are a little bit to that in there. It's more off like what permits do I need to get. And so, you know, how do we make that as easy as possible and provide information and then connect them with the right resources to go there? And then part of it also is figuring out beyond that, you know, how do we streamline things for businesses? So as we're doing some of these business uh visits and talking with folks, you know, if they kind of run into things of, hey, I'm having trouble doing this or this is unnecessarily difficult. So how do we streamline? And we can work with some of our partners of figuring out, okay, we're making this a little too challenging for businesses right now. Can we streamline this? Yeah. Or this is costing unnecessarily a little bit too much to, you know, do this for housing right now. So is there a way that we can lower the cost for this? Um, and I think we got some some folks in the area that are looking at those things right now. Um, that, you know, not that it's out of line, but they're always trying to improve. And so they're trying to figure out those things too of like, okay, here's something that we could do that would improve things. So you hear those things and you bring those back to the table. Uh, and I think that's all part of the picture as well. Yeah. No, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

So this um it's specific to our region currently, but is this a common like organization that exists around different regions, states, nations that it's just all maybe named something different?

SPEAKER_04 16:28

Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, there's um a lot of ready's out there. Ready stands for regional economic development incorporated. Okay. Columbia has a ready organization. Jeff City has a ready organization. So there's a lot of those. There's a lot of communities that have um in-house economic development organizations. So they may um they may hire internally with the within the city or within the county. So it's structured differently in and it really just depends on the local group and sure how they feel about it.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:04

Um, but they're they're all over the country. I mean, this is uh an odd profession that not a lot of people know about, right? Um I tell my my wife's a teacher and she has her group of other teachers, and they they can talk about what's going on and stuff. I mean, Lucas and I basically have to go to state associations to have those conversations because it's just such a limited pool. Nobody around here is doing the same kind of stuff. So, you know, there's maybe 200 members of the state Economic Development Association, and that's it. Like there's just not that many people, but most communities have some touch point too.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Uh, do you get to so you kind of interact with people within the state, but is there any sort of like uh maybe national group for ready's and stuff that you kind of compare notes with and benchmark against Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

So this year, um, you know, this kind of goes along with with the national outreach of how we're trying to market um to site selectors. And so uh this year went to the um uh site selectors guild in Atlanta, um, which is a national organization. Uh, and that was really kind of the focus was on how do we get in front of more site selectors. Those are folks that are hired by companies uh to help make a decision on where they're gonna locate uh their organization. Maybe they're gonna relocate, maybe they're expanding. Um uh and so they're trying to make the decisions based off of you know what communities have, either buildings or sites where they can go build. Uh, but there's a lot of economic development folks there. Uh then you have the SEDC Southern Economic Development Council, more regional. I think there's 17 states uh more across the southeast, and Missouri's part of that. So we went to that, uh, that was in Texas this year. There's a number of others that are out there. You could spend a lot of time and money going to different events and councils that are out there, um, but those are two of the the larger ones. Um and uh and again, our focus is more on how do we get in front of the people that are making decisions on on locating, but you also have that opportunity to talk to other people that are in the same space. Uh kind of what what are they seeing, what are their challenges, uh, what are they learning?

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Is that a pretty open environment? Like are people pretty information sharing? I think they are. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

I think generally, I mean, even though like everybody's kind of trying to compete for sites and and to bring businesses, but generally I think folks are are are pretty open on sharing, like, you know, this is what we're dealing with, this is what we're learning.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Um, and um and every state legislature is different, their programs are different. That's right. You bring to the tables different, you know, natural resources and certainly.

SPEAKER_04 19:48

Yeah, and there's and uh one other one I'll just throw out there is the International Economic Development Council, that's right. Which is a um kind of the premier body that does certification. So I'm a certified economic developer. I got it through that group. Okay. Um so there's that exists, and then there's a there's a Missouri certification. So there are some professional uh uh associations that do that kind of thing in this industry as well.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Yeah, okay. Nice. Um what are kind of what are some of the biggest barriers or question marks that businesses typically have when they're moving, looking at moving into an area?

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Well, I mean, uh several things that they'll look at. I mean, site readiness is always part of it. Um some will look at whether it's it's land or whether it's buildings. Um, you know, we're certainly seeing a number of folks that are just looking do you have buildings? Um, but not everybody. Some folks are more open to land. Um, and so uh, but also they want to know that that the site is is shovel ready or pretty close to it. Um, you know, does it have the water that they need? Does it have the electricity or natural gas? Um, you know, so there's a lot of different specifications that they're gonna look for on that end. Workforce is always a big part of it. Yeah. Uh, and so I mean, there's a number of different factors. Um, we'll receive uh uh RFIs for different projects from uh a state organization uh regularly. And um, you know, all the the RFIs are are there's some commonalities, but each one of them is a little different. So different companies are looking for different things. Um, and some are are really in you know detailed of what they're what they really want. Um, and uh but generally almost all of them, they're they're wanting to know utilities, wastewater, water, um, and then workforce is always a big one. Yeah. Sometimes really diving in deep into the workforce uh for specific trades.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Yeah. You're pretty much describing all the reasons why everybody has to be on the same page as I'm thinking about it while you're talking, right? Because it's like, okay, well, they want site readiness. Well, somebody has to have put money. Into a site and basically graded it and you know ran utilities and all that. But to have utilities to support a huge manufacturing facility, your utility companies have to be able to provide it. And then if for workforce, we got to make sure we have all the schooling and certification. So um, you know, I was thinking it was more one-laned than that, but as you continue talking, I'm like, oh no, this makes sense. There's a lot of stuff that has to happen.

SPEAKER_04 22:27

Yeah. They it you know, the interesting thing about the economic development world is if you're not careful, it's a lot of worlds that come together. And so definitely in smaller communities, um, some economic developers end up doing a whole bunch of stuff. They might be doing housing because the issue they've run into is that they can't attract a new manufacturer because they can't they don't have the housing stock for the next 30 employees to move to their community. So so we've really tried to stay pretty laser focused and get everybody around the table because there's different ones who can solve different issues. Um and and I think that's important. In in a community uh in a region our size, um, we don't there's parts of the game we don't want to be in.

SPEAKER_03 23:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:09

And but there's other people who are. So we we try to stay connected across that spectrum.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Which kind of gets back into the whole retail. I mean, we we generally don't focus a lot on retail, but if there's a developer that's gonna work on retail, we'll talk with the developer on the building and try to figure out how do we get that building, you know, is there something that we can work help the developer out on, you know, getting them to the next level so that building's in good shape.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

But like we got a lot of good developers that are working on that. Yeah. So let them do what they're good at, you know, and so let's go out and figure out the industrial side of things.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yeah. So for us as a region at Southeast Missouri, what what are things that we have done well to position ourselves to attract businesses and then other things that we need to work on that we're hearing are, hey, we need this in order to move there.

SPEAKER_04 23:58

Yeah, I think and I'm gonna answer the same way on both sides of that. So I I think one of the best things we've done is Interstate 55 and Highway 60, which is now becoming Interstate 57. So the transportation infrastructure around here is critical. And I'm not just saying that because I'm on the Delta podcast, but that's uh it really is critical. That said, we still lack in some transportation. I think we need more east-west access on the northern part of southeast Missouri. So you cross the amazing bridge at Cape Girardeau, the Emerson Memorial Bridge. Uh, you can go about four or five miles in either direction, and then you run into miles and miles and acres and acres of woods both ways in Illinois and Missouri. I'd love to see some way to get east-west a little faster. I mean, that's what we hear from Procter and Gamble and others, is that our costs for transportation are higher here than other plants they have in the country because it's so much farther to go east and west here. Yeah. So you're makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Probably why Memphis gets a lot of stuff too.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

Yeah, right. So they they have all the crossings of those four lanes going through. So that's one. I I think the other thing I'll say is on the on the workforce front, something we do well is that the folks we have here tend to be pretty good workers, generally speaking, throughout Southeast Missouri compared to some other parts of the country. We hear that a lot from people who have plants and locations um uh all over the country. Now we don't have enough. We don't have enough workers, our population decline is a challenge, uh, and we have some gaps in our training. I mean, we we certainly having the you see Southeast Missouri State University here is huge. That's a big deal that attracts a bunch of people into the region. Um there's certainly still some, we have Mineral Area College and we have Three Rivers College, but they're both about an hour and 15 minutes from Cape, which is the population center. Um so we we lack some technical training here in the Cape part of the region that we'd love to see solved as well.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah. Only thing I'd add is is, you know, in recent years we've had the CEMO Industrial Park that's really um improved an opportunity to have a Missouri certified site, and we're working through a ready site certification for that right now. But you have a 380-acre certified site uh that really is a shovel ready site. And so that gives us something to go to some of these large industrial, uh, go after some of these large industrial projects and say, okay, we have something. You know, Amazon is was the first one to go in there with the on 20 acres uh with 70 jobs, a 60,000 square foot facility. Uh and you know, we really think that's a that's an asset for the region. You know, to have a certified site in Southeast Missouri uh is a is a big deal. And so I mean that that is certainly an asset.

SPEAKER_04 26:58

Yeah, and then the last thing I had a chance to think while Litvis was talking. So the other, the last piece I see in the opportunity is regionalism, um, working better together as a region. So for instance, I just said mineral area college and three rivers. And what I didn't say was ranking in Perryville, which is a great opportunity. But the fact that I didn't say that speaks exactly to the problems that we're trying to overcome uh as a regional partner. So we're still working on that. And we're still building those, we have good relationships, but we're building the formal relationships now. How do we work together? How do we improve things? Yeah. And so we're getting a lot closer on that, um, still overcoming those barriers. And I think we have some pathways that are really exciting the rest of this year and into 27. And so um excited about that potential.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Yeah. Well, I was gonna ask like, what are advantages and disadvantages of being in a university town, but maybe you kind of already answered it. It sounds like there's maybe plenty of education around. It's just making sure that we're all working together with education and technical skills and not overlapping a ton, right? Like feed what we need through everybody's expertise, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 28:17

I mean, the advantages of being in a university town far, far outweigh any disadvantages. And most of the disadvantages are negative things happening to the university that were only there because it was an advantage, right? So I mean the it's you know, 8,000 to 10,000 students given the uh year. A lot of those come from outside the region. It is our number one driver for a workforce pipeline of new imported workers into our community. Now, a lot of those leave, and they leave maybe even without knowing what opportunities we had here. And so it is incumbent upon us to make sure that those opportunities are visible to them while they're here. I mean, Lucas and I both went through that university. I he grew up here, I grew up in the boot hill an hour away. I never left because I came here and found opportunities and a wife that also kept me here, I guess. So that's the other factor, you know, that it is a contributor, I suppose. But but I think that's uh, you know, maybe we should just do more matchmaking with locals.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:24

We keep them all here.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Just do say the there is certainly a buzz when the university is in session, you know, when when summer kind of gives way to fall. Yeah. You know, Cape Girarde looks different. Yeah, in a very positive way. Yeah. It is a good thing for Cape Girardeau when more students are back in town. It's good for retailers. They're certainly spending more money in this community, which is a good thing. You know, it's something that kind of stuck with me uh in a uh meeting we had today, and it wasn't a it wasn't a CEMO student, but it was someone that was in town for an internship uh elsewhere, but they were exposed to the community by being here and they just had a really positive experience in different things that they were doing. But I think that also translates with CEMO students. Like if they're in town over a period of time and they have a positive experience, you got a lot better chance of keeping them. Yeah. You know, and so you see, you know, whether they're going, you know, things that we may take for granted and some of the things that were mentioned, you know, in that meeting today, uh, you know, you wouldn't have thought of, you know, some things certainly I I would have thought of, but other things less so. Uh and and so the more that they're exposed to uh the area and have that good experience, better chance that you have of of keeping that talent in Southeast Missouri. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Oh, that's great. What uh portions of your jobs would you guys say is like sales, consulting, problem solving?

SPEAKER_04 30:51

I mean a huge portion, I think. Maybe it's all of them. Yeah, I mean Lucas's role is to go sit down with a business and find out what's working and what's not working, and then be a consultant, a free consultant for them on state tools and all this stuff, right? Yeah. And I think I think mine is probably more a very large board that has to um have engagement and and very intelligent people around the room that we need to be sure we're um taking advantage uh of their intelligence and their smarts and their experience. And it's easy to lose that when there's 30 plus of them. And so um to me, uh maybe that's not sales or consulting in a traditional sense, but I think um being a liaison for the community and trying to grasp and wrap my head around where do we want to go? And then being that voice and going out and selling that, I think is really important. But Lucas is probably more in line with sales every day, I would think.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

I used to be in a a role where I was kind of mentoring younger um professionals and some that just did not see themselves in a quote unquote sales role at all. I would if I didn't say it verbally, I certainly presented it in this way. Everybody's in sales at some level, you know, whether you're actually selling something or not. But yeah, you know, you're you gotta present yourself in some level of like, okay, how do you, you know, present yourself and help, you know, uh present a product or service or help help people, and you're not selling, but you're you're selling and you're you're you're providing a service um and helping solve problems. Yeah. So it's that old um Clayton Christensen jobs to be done, you know, axiom of like how do you how do you solve um you know the problem and and you know um figure that out. So um yeah, I would say if probably most of the role is isn't that.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Yeah. Chad, you brought up an interesting point, and it's I'd be curious how you look at this from a leadership perspective of you're kind of you are leading this board of 30 board members or whatever between private and public representatives, um but none of them report to you, but you're still trying to get something done in the economy and in the community. So how like what kind of leadership skills do you lean into or what things have you seen work and don't work in that type of setting?

SPEAKER_04 33:32

Yeah, and it's a it's a classic. If if you've spent your career in private sector, that's a really weird concept, right? And um, for those of us who've spent most of our career on the public side, Chamber of Commerce is structured the same way. Yeah, that's true. Um uh nonprofits are often structured the same way. Um what my belief is that you want those board members to be smarter than you at s something and probably a lot of things, right? And so you want the folks around that table um to provide the real guidance in the strategic direction. And it's it's my job uh to be sure that we're listening to it, we're engaging all the folks, but at the end of the day, I got to go make a decision and move uh the organization forward. And as I have I think the board's been really good about this. They've given me the flexibility to do that without micromanaging because none of them are in this every day. Um, they bring a ton of value for a short period of time when I have them, and then they're off running their own businesses. And so I I have to keep the ball rolling down the field, like let's move it, let's go another yard line, let's go another yard line. Um, and if I don't do that, at some point they'll come back and say, Well, you're not moving the ball fast enough. We're we're gonna find somebody else to do it. And that's that's fine, right? And so to me, uh it I think you just have to balance the um it all comes back to the fact that I am in no way even close to the smartest person in that room, and I gotta recognize that. So I gotta lead with this sense of humility that there's 30 people around this table who have done something or maybe almost everything that I'm doing in some ways, other than the technical aspects of economic development, but the leadership stuff. Yeah. And I mean my board chair as an organization with over 3,000 employees. Yeah. Right. I mean, the most I've ever managed is 20. And so it's it's pretty clear to me that uh he's gonna have insights in that area. So um where I think some people in my role fail is that they that they try to um prove that they're smart and they don't you utilize that expertise around them. I mean, I it how great would it be in your job if any day you could pick up the phone and there's 30 people who are committed to your organization who have a ton of experience who are willing to talk to you and tell you, yeah, I think I'd do it that way, or no, have you thought about this? Utilize that network. That's a really critical aspect of making this all work.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah, that's a really good answer. Um, and I think it's it's interesting because like a lot of higher up manager roles, you're kind of doing the same thing with a team, but then they also work for you all the time, right? So like the majority of your time is okay, well, let's collect thoughts and data from them and then make a decision and let's start it back over. They're not necessarily going and then doing all the work themselves, right? So you're kind of flipping back and forth between, okay, well, I gotta be a leader manager of this large team, get all their ideas and get everybody on the same page, then go do the work and then go back to it. So you're flipping back and forth. And I think it's super relatable, right? Like for most people, having 3,000 employees is not relatable, right? Yeah, like that's a very high-powered position. Like you said, probably super smart, has a lot of insight and experience and all that, but it's also not most people. Yes, that that's 100%. And plus they almost always hit like there's no way, yes, there's 3,000 people that report through them or like through them ultimately, but their leadership team is 15 to 20 people or whatever, right? And you got to count on others. But yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:35

And and the other piece of all that is if I went and polled every board member on every decision, I'd have 30 different directions. I mean, you can't do that. Yeah, you got to know um there's certain board members who are going to bring certain insights on certain things. And so I will call one and just say, hey, I'm thinking about this, but I might not call the other 20 on that one. I might call two. Sure. And then we make a decision and we move forward. And so it's learning the balance of that and just being really uh receptive to to who's good at what and what matters when you need a decision made. I mean, sometimes there's just board members who you need them on your side so that they'll speak up in the room and be an advocate for you.

SPEAKER_03 38:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:17

Um, because they sway the room. Yeah. And so there's some politics involved in it, right? And uh I I think we're a little less political than most organizations in this world just because of the nature of the people who um who were in charge when I I got brought on. They're very uh all about process and openness and and which attracted me to the role, right? I mean, I thought that was really critical. So um it's an it's an interesting experience. I've and we've got a great board and I enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

Yeah, that's good. Do you share kind of the same experience, Lucas? Or because I mean you're you guys really have no direct reports, right? But you're I guess a lot of your team per se could be businesses in the area. I mean, you're getting research from them and helping them solve problems, but you're also maybe an advocate for them in some ways.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Yeah, yeah. I mean, certainly, you know, you want to um you want to see the businesses in the area succeed. And so ultimately that's our that's our goal on there. And you know, and like Shadow, you know, I I've been impressed with our board uh of you know, you have folks, it's it's not a rubber stamp group of like, well, hey, you know, go team. Um, you know, they they're clearly they want to see the area succeed, but you know, they'll grapple with issues and try to figure out how do we make you know the group stronger and the area stronger. Um, but they also there's some flexibility in there of like we're not gonna just you know micromanage every issue. Yeah. What issues do they want to kind of get around and have some input in? Um and you know, there's certain things are like, well, you know, that's what we hire you all to manage, yeah, you know, to do. And then there's other things that like you know that they kind of want to have some input and where they bring value, and we know we're kind of where they bring value. And so there's that figuring out of like, okay, what stuff do we need to bring to them uh and go through uh and what things they just need an update on and you go forward.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I already know the answer to this, but what's what are some industry trends that are really like driving growth right now and interest? You want to go with that?

SPEAKER_04 40:25

Uh sure. Happy to jump on the fall on that grenade. Yeah. You know, I a few trends and and then I'll back into this, but um across the board uh we've seen a lot more demand for energy. Yeah. And so that's been a trend that we've been dealing with. Um, and this is, and I'll talk about data centers in a minute, but this is not only data centers. Manufacturers are using more energy right now, and it's a uh the curve has gone up quite a bit. And so these projects, they used to come in and say, we need, you know, uh a megawatt or something, and now they're like, we need 15 megawatts and or way more. I mean, you've just seen it grow uh significantly. Um so that that's been an industry trend. Um the other one that is kind of interesting, and we did a study of the region um and we interviewed about 97 businesses, and I'm I'm very interested in the AI impacts on businesses. Um, I I think that globally a lot of businesses are seeing impacts from AI. We did not see those results in our local survey in Southeast Missouri. So I think that some of our businesses aren't, at least as of about nine months ago, weren't experiencing them in the same way that some uh other businesses, if you're on the coast or if you're in tech, were experiencing them. I'm really interested to watch that and see when those impacts come in because it certainly changed the way I function. And I'm sure that's true of a lot of individuals within those companies. But we we didn't have one reported layoff due to AI out of all those 97 companies, which represented thousands and thousands of employees uh throughout an 18 County region. So really interesting trend to watch. And then the the the last one, I will um end on data centers here. I mean, at 50 percent of this is a rough estimate, but maybe 50 percent of the potential projects we see now are data center related. We and in various stages, there are people who are poking around. They're they're pretty uh we've we've had calls from actual end user data center companies. We don't have a specific project or anything at the moment, but we there's a lot of chatter around it. And I think there's it's taking up a lot of oxygen in the room for development, not only here, but throughout the country. And so there's other manufacturers that aren't getting into that space yet because it's driving up land prices. And there's all these um follow-on impacts of what's happening that that's in influencing what we do.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Yeah. The only thing I'd add, and we've kind of talked about this a little bit here, but on workforce, you know, I think uh folks are still looking for workers. Uh, you know, the one thing that we've we've seen probably more is generally speaking, and again, not in all cases, is you can get the entry-level worker, it's that additional next level worker with the additional technical training. Yeah. And so finding that that worker that can uh you know be the um the diesel mechanic, the electrical trays, the HVAC, uh, who can do that that next level job. Um, that's something that we're seeing more of a of the need for. Um, the need for soft skills that's that's tougher. I think really since COVID, we've seen, you know, more and more challenges. Um, you know, we know that we have a lot of of baby boomers that are are retiring and more to come. And so you got a you got a big section of the workforce that's exiting um the workforce. Um And not as many that are replacing. So, I mean, there's certainly a shortage. Yeah. Uh and so um as much as people get concerned about AI, I think there's a component of AI just to make people more productive. Um, but you know, there's still a need for people to do the basic functions for a number of a lot of these jobs, um, whether it's professional level or in the trades. And so um certainly workforce, and I don't think I that's certainly not exclusive to Southeast Missouri. That's everywhere as we talk to people in our fields, you know, everybody's looking for workers.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Yeah. I'm curious, based on what you said about uh people companies reporting layoffs due to AI on the coast and stuff, if we're not seeing it because we're the Midwest and we kind of trail coastal timelines, or if it's our types of business.

SPEAKER_04 44:57

I'd be specul speculating a little bit. I I think it has to do with types of business more than a trailing indicator like you see on other trends just because AI became available uh universally about the same time, you know, and Chad GPT launched in late 22 and then it could hardly do anything, but pretty quickly it could do something. And now there may be some adoption rates that are a little slower around here. Um, but we don't have companies that have 10,000 coders in southeast Missouri, right? I mean that if you have 10,000 coders and you can cut 20% of them because your AI made the rest of them more efficient, that's a whole different world. You still have a lot of employees. Uh our largest employer, I think, in the entire region is St. Francis, which has about um 31, 3,400 employees and with some open positions. Um, you know, a lot of those positions, uh, I mean, they're healthcare providers, right? You're not going to replace that until uh the AIs become really good robots, maybe, and and get some bedside manner and all this stuff, right? Uh that's more like a dystopian future, I think, than than where we are in any near term.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

And even in healthcare is what I've heard is that it's not helping them get significantly more patients through. Yeah. It's helping make things richer and how they treat patients. Yes. But it's not like you're, you know, treating five X the number of patients a day, you know, even with AI. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:29

So I think we've seen uh AI make work easier for our existing employees, but we haven't seen it replace employees yet. And so that's kind of I I think that's the trend we're seeing locally.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Yeah, that makes sense. So outside of being involved with like SEMO ready board and everything, how do we go about aligning all these people together? Employers, schools, you know, the different communities, things like that.

SPEAKER_04 47:02

Yeah, uh I'll start on this one, and Lucas will probably have insights as well. Um, I thought it would be easier, uh honestly, from a and not that we're not making progress. I just in my role at the state, I worked with all of these partners, and I I erroneously assumed I could just walk in and be like, hey, I'm here to do good stuff. Let's all go do good stuff together. And they'd be like, Cool, let's do that. And so that wasn't exactly waiting for you. Yeah. I don't know why, but for some reason that didn't sell it. So uh I I learned pretty quickly that um, you know, we we had to get our act together and what we were doing, and there was a there was had been some transition from magnet to CMO ready, and there was I there was no director for a couple years. And so um when I first got on, I started having some of those conversations, and it was pretty clear the message was go figure out your stuff, then come back. And so we've done that, I think, and and we're in a much better position than we are. Um, it doesn't mean we have uh kumbaya among all our partners at this point, but um we do have all our partners or most of them are starting to be around the table. And so uh there's still a long way to go, but I think I think the only true pathway to getting there is consistent, open, honest communication with everyone. We're never gonna please everyone. It it's never gonna be perfect.

SPEAKER_03 48:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:32

Um, I have arguments with leaders in this community on one issue, and then we talk the next day on another issue, and and that that's just a different thing. We have to put that behind us and move on with something else. So it can't be personal. Uh, you can't make things personal. Um, and that doesn't always happen. Sometimes people do, but uh I think I think that we're in a much better place than we are, and we just have to stay focused on that. Um just like I said earlier, I'm I'm I forgot about an asset in our region that's a that's a partner's asset, right? And that's that's I I need to be uh admit that and and change that and try every day to get a little better about that.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

Mm-hmm. That's fair. Um what makes our area most attractive?

SPEAKER_00 49:24

I think being centrally located is a huge asset. Um, you know, where you can get to a good portion of the country um, you know, pretty quickly. You know, that was again brought up again this morning of like, well, you know, being in the middle country where it is, you can get nearly everywhere in a in a fairly short distance, you know, being on the interstate, you know, access to uh the airport. Uh one thing we haven't brought up today is our port. You know, the port is a is a huge asset, um, just you know, a few miles down the road. And that's a that's a big deal. Uh and so when you think, you know, river, rail, airport, interstate, centrally located in the country, um, there's a lot to lot to like about where we are.

SPEAKER_04 50:09

Yeah, and there's you know, I think those are all very valuable assets to sell. And a lot of regions in the country have somewhat similar assets, right? And and so I think at the end of the day, there's a handful of things we really have to lean in on. We have to do all that stuff. We have to support um those assets. But to differentiate ourselves, we have to go after the people who have a tie here, who grew up here, who have family here, who had a grandparent that was here and they visited as a kid and they have some nostalgic memory of it. I mean, these are the lowest hanging fruits for the kind of people who are going to bring companies and make investments in our region. And it's just, I mean, you look at a handful of projects that we've done in our role, one of the best ones is TrustWorks. Well, the owner of Trustworks grew up in Jackson, Missouri, went off, spent 40 years in the trust industry, did really well. All the but he wanted to retire here and he wasn't quite ready to retire, so he built a business here. So that's a that's a huge, and he got on city council in Jackson, right? I mean, that that's a great pool to get him back in the community. He's not coming here if he didn't grow up here. I mean, he's not gonna make that decision. So I think that's one thing we really have to think about is how do we ensure that if you went to high school in Puxico, Missouri, that you have an opportunity here and that we're always following up with you to make sure that you understand what the opportunities are. The second thing is that um I think we have to create something that is different and stands out from the thousand other communities that say, we have great schools, parks and people, you know, or whatever. Uh, or we have a 70-acre site. Uh, and so, um, okay, there's uh 870-acre sites. And if you're in site selection, that's really a misnomer for what the industry does. It is a site elimination industry. You look, if if if Delta wanted to make an expansion somewhere and they're like, we need to be kind of over, you know, in the Midwest. Uh, probably we're gonna draw a giant circle, and there's about five states we touch. And then within those five states, let's reach out to those states and see if they have any sites. So that state, one of them's Missouri, they're gonna send it out to their entire ecosystem, and there's gonna be about 50 sites that get submitted to them as potential places for Delta to do that expansion. Now you multiply that by over eight states and you got 400 sites coming at you. Well, you're gonna what's the easiest way I can take this from 400 to 50? And then let's start narrowing down. So you may get eliminated way before you're ever really looking at the details of that property. You may get a this is um, you know, you may get eliminated because the state income tax is too high or whatever. I mean, there's somebody's making a decision somewhere to eliminate and narrow down. So what can we do to stand out and be different? And that's where I think that our apprenticeship opportunity, SEMO works, is the is the best path for us to go down. If we could be the number one region in the country for apprenticeships, and that and I'm speaking this vision into existence everywhere I go, and because I think there's a pathway there. But if we can say that to some company that, hey, the thing that's different about Southeast Missouri is that we have figured out our workforce pipeline. Let me show you how. Let me show you why. This website documents everything we've done on apprenticeships. It has some certifications. We've gotten some national press, all this stuff. Then they go, oh, that's kind of interesting. Maybe let's not eliminate those three sites in Southeast Missouri in the first round. Let's get a little bit farther down the list before we knock those off the list because they they're doing some cool stuff in workforce development. So I think we got to create some differentiators, and that's the one that I'm most excited about.

SPEAKER_01 54:08

Yeah, that makes sense. What um Lucas, maybe this is good for you. What's a common misconception that site selectors have about our area? Or like, you know, general region, Midwest, even maybe.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

Well, I don't know if that's even a misconception. I th you know it's it's more of just getting it on the radar. Okay. You know, it's it's there are as Chad said, there's so many sites. Um, and so part of it is just making sure that it's on the radar of like what's available um and what does it have to offer. Um and so as they're thinking about size and they have a client um that, oh yeah, I remember there was that site down in southeast Missouri that we talked about. And so um, you know, you you just kind of have to ping things a little bit. So you know, we'll send a newsletter out every six to eight weeks, we'll you know, be at some of these events, you know, and just you know, you're regularly just kind of talking to some of these folks and getting messages out so that uh it's top of mind. Uh I mentioned the Missouri Certified Site Program. We're doing the Ready Sites program. And so um, you know, we think about site readiness or site elimination, you know, part of it is just trying to get down the funnel of so that you know you you still kind of make their funnel of sites that they're gonna consider. Um, that you're you're checking the boxes. Uh and I think that's that's a that's a big part of it as well.

SPEAKER_04 55:35

Yeah, I think we don't have a perception issue, we have a lack of perception issue. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:42

Okay. They just don't know we're here.

SPEAKER_03 55:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:46

So that's why people who do know we're here is the is the easiest path because they grew up here or something. Yeah. But um it's our job to make sure more people know we're here.

SPEAKER_01 55:55

Yeah, your take is we're not actively being um removed from the selection. We just don't stick out.

SPEAKER_04 56:04

We're being removed by lack of awareness of anything we have to offer. And and it's nobody's fault, right? We're just a smaller fish. And that's why I think we have to play together as a region because Cape is a certain size fish, but Southeast Missouri is a little bit bigger of a fish. And the bigger fish we can take to those ponds, the more likely we are to get a hook and start to try to reel something in. I just flip the metaphor right in the middle, but that's what we're doing. We're reeling them in.

SPEAKER_01 56:34

You're full of metaphors today. You just right-flip through them.

SPEAKER_04 56:39

I'm doing all kinds of stuff with my metaphors.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

Uh how do you guys measure success and your roles now?

SPEAKER_00 56:49

Yeah, I think we talked about this a little bit earlier in the sense of, you know, it's it's um you know, population growth and GDP. Everything we do, you know, it has to be focused on does this do something to help us grow our population? Does this do something to help us grow our GDP? Yep. Then beyond that, you know, there's the tactical aspects of like, okay, we're gonna try to do a certain number of visits with companies. We want to try to make sure that we're helping make sure we're, you know, Missouri Works applications or or credentialing um, you know, uh applications for um job training. So there's the tactical aspects of individual things that we're trying to go after. Um, but as far as big goals, you know, it's it's anything we're doing, we want to focus back on that. You know, is this gonna help our population? Is this gonna help GDP? Are we helping our local companies grow? Um, is this gonna be something that potentially gets in front of a site selector or uh an individual company that's you know, regional or Chicago or St. Louis or Memphis, that maybe they're thinking of adding a location or relocating that you know, we can we can help them and make sure that we're on their radar. Um and um so I mean it goes to that, or you know, it does something with training. Maybe we're adding another training component to the area. Um, so I think, but it again, it all goes back to that population or GDP.

SPEAKER_04 58:10

Yeah, and it and I'll just say that it's it's an pretty early on, that was the target, the population GDP, and the iterative steps, tactical steps to get there have been um evolving. Uh, you know, the at first it was how do we make sure the deltas of the world in our own community know what we're doing and why we're doing it. And so that was the first step, right? Is that we got to get our local stakeholders on board. And then it's been evolving and changing, and and we're just now, I think, getting into a place where we're going. We went from an organization that wasn't really functioning to an organization that was functioning pretty well for economic development organizations in our region to now one that I think is doing some things that others in Southeast Missouri aren't doing. So we're continuing to step up. I mean, I want to be a world-class organization. Yeah. Or what are we doing here? Why even bother? So we're we're gonna continue to push that envelope.

SPEAKER_01 59:04

Yeah. The competitive edge. You want to be the best. That's right. You brought up a good um just general business like goal setting and leadership stuff is defining the end goal initially, right? So the big end goal is moving the GDP and the population numbers, and then breaking those up into bite-sized goals of, okay, well, you know, if we just say that's our end goal and we just blindly start working towards that, we're probably not gonna make a difference with it. But let's break it down and bring it all the way back to present day and how we make it there in three to five years or whatever that timeline is, right?

SPEAKER_04 59:44

So that's that's absolutely right. I mean, it's it's that's more of a vision statement, right? Yeah. Um these things have not done well over the last couple decades in our region. And I don't know that we have the secret sauce to uh improve it, but we're certainly not going to sit around and watch it continue to decline without trying to do something.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:05

And that's why I think everybody on that board's around the table is because they are aware of the challenges uh and they want to be a part of the solution. And if they knew the exact solution, they'd all just go do it. And that's why we're all getting together because we're trying to figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So what we do on the podcast as a tradition is the last guest leaves a question for the next guest. So your question is what do you think would make the world a better place to live and work in?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:35

I I'll start because I uh uh I'm an economic developer. So I I everything I d do think and say, I think, um is in shrouded in that lens. Um to me, you know, when I think about that, I think about our region and I think about the gutting of jobs. Uh you know, when you look at especially, I mean, I grew up in Stoddard County and you look at the jobs that are left there and their home healthcare worker roles because it's such an aging population. Um and so I think a balance of recruiting good high-wage jobs into a community solves a lot of problems. If you have a proctor and gamble doubling its size and the kind of wages they pay, and then that money circulating in your economy, I think life expen expectancy goes up in a region that has good jobs. You have better infrastructure because they're following, you have better things to do. So, in a true economic developer answer here, I'm gonna say recruiting jobs improves the world. Yeah. Uh improves my little world in Southeast Missouri. And I and I'm not equipped to answer anything beyond that. We're not talking foreign affairs or politics. Lucas is smarter than me. Maybe he'll go deeper into world affairs.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

Well, I mean, certainly uh branching off from just strictly economic development, I would say, you know, engagement in your community, you know, getting families um engaged, getting their children engaged in a community, uh, in their church, local churches, you know, just uh a lack of of engagement, I think is a problem there, which also gets back from an economic development standpoint on soft skills too. Like so if you're if you're raising the next generation of workers without uh a foundation of soft skills, um, that's a real, real challenge. And so, and you know, you see that to some extent um with what's going on in the workforce. So um I think that could be that's certainly a big part of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:52

Gosh, that's such a good answer. I have to talk again because his his answer is so good. Um, because I I think he's right. I mean, you see these like the rotary clubs of the world losing attendance. Uh, you see people, reasonable people choosing not to run for a local office, uh, and then the void gets filled um by people with an agenda or uh who or who aren't reasonable in some cases. Uh and and in some ways that needs to happen, but but you want more of a bench on those kinds of things, like people interested and excited about it to do it and to make their community a better place. Because if it it all starts here, like the world gets better if Missouri gets better, and Missouri gets better if Cape Girardeau gets better, and Cape is gets better if Ward 4 gets better. You know, it's all these little pieces, and and that all happens if people care and get involved.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:53

And so I think your answer was so good because uh we we're seeing people check out from that kind of and for a variety of reasons. I'm not saying anyone's wrong for checking out. I mean, we the economic conditions have shifted. If you're getting out of college at a I mean, I got out of college during the great um like the 08 recession, right? Right in there. And it was I was pretty fortunate, but a lot of my classmates couldn't find jobs there. So their perception was a lot different. They weren't then joining Rotary Club three years later. They're still trying to get on their feet and with a job. And so I think there's a lot of impacts that got us here. Um, but man, if we turn the tide on some of that stuff, it would be huge. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:34

Yeah. Well, in fairness, I think you both answered kind of the same way. Just in different ways. But I think you're both saying uh a healthy community with involvement is what makes everything better, right? And so Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:50

Thank you for reframing me more eloquently.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:53

You're welcome. You took a hardcore economic developer approach.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:57

That's what I do. I said I said go back to church. He said get involved in economic development between the two of us.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

That's a very churchy drive. Okay, and then he came back. Then he came back and said, Oh, you he had to humanize himself. Okay. Uh well, thanks, guys. This is fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:18

Well, thank you for having us. Really appreciate it. Appreciate your your involvement in SEMO ready um and all you do to drive um growth in our region from building the things we need to move goods around. So it's sure and and people. Yeah. Not just goods, but people too. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:34

Absolutely. Cool. Thanks so much. If y'all enjoyed the episode, please rate our show and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and check out Delta on all social media platforms at Delta Companies, and our website at Delta C O S looks like Deltacos.com. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.