Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Todd Tranum

Curt Anderson  0:01

Hey guys, happy Monday. Thank God it’s Monday, Damon. Good morning, my friend. How was your Thanksgiving?

Damon Pistulka  0:07

It was awesome. Kurt, I hope yours was great as well.

Curt Anderson  0:10

I mean, it couldn’t have been better. It was just a wonderful, glorious weekend. And I am so fired up. I’m so excited for my buddy today. Todd Tranum. Todd, welcome to manufacturing Monday motivation. How are you, buddy?

Todd Tranum  0:22

Great. It’s wonderful to be here. I’ve recovered from the tryptophan and the the turkey and all the wine. And when I get a great weekend, great, great time with a lot of family. It was wonderful.

Curt Anderson  0:37

Yeah, that is awesome. And it you know, I know your family. Well, we’ll we’ll dig into that. So it sounds like you just had a spectacular time. Your grandson, your dad, you know, all sorts of family, your kids from college at Furman and the Bronx and your daughter in Erie. So this is phenomenal. So lots of good times over the weekend. So guys, this is such an honor and privilege for me tonight, go way back. And that in tight, I’m not saying this just because you heard my respect and admiration for you. Just off the charts, I’ve had a front row view of your career, watch what you’ve done. And so we’re just thrilled to unpack some of this. So what I want to do, let’s let’s, let’s go back in time, a little bit talk about like your journey, how you got things started, you know, I know you get your MBA, Penn State, talk about how you got into, you know, you’re a huge advocate for US manufacturing, big I feel of pioneer and workforce development, been president of our chamber of commerce here, where we’re located for many, many years. So just talk a little bit about your journey. And then we’ll catch up from there.

Todd Tranum  1:38

Well, first of all, Kurt, you’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with. And I’ve always been a firm believer and bringing people along with me that that make up for my weaknesses. And you’ve been one of them. You’ve been a great advisor, you know, served on our board for a number of years in the chamber and deeply involved in manufacturing. So let me just get it out there that you’ve been a great mentor to me in a great supporter, and I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without people like you around. Thank you. So so my journey, as it relates to manufacturing really started in the back in the late 90s. I came back from Arizona, I was out there for four years worked at a variety capacities private and public sector came home and, and connected with the Manufacturers Association at that time, the Manufacturers Association of the Jamestown area. Now we’re regional, we’re in three counties, and even working across the New York state border in the Pennsylvania. And even as I stepped into that opportunity back in the late 90s, we were looking at a lot of census data and looking at our in our plants and in our workforce and realizing we’re gonna get old at some point. And we didn’t see a lot of younger generation coming in and in the pipeline. And it was concerning. Now a lot of people were talking about it back in the late 90s, early 2000s. But we knew a wave was coming. And we were fortunate to have some extremely strong, visionary leadership at our community college here in our region, who realized they needed to make some adjustments and how they were approaching training the future workforce, around manufacturing. And we partnered, we came up with a mission and a vision to create a Manufacturing Technology Institute to create a center of excellence in our region, to provide training, but also bring in state of the art equipment to help industry you know, see see what was evolving and what was coming down the line. And, you know, we worked on developing you know, curriculum and training bringing in trainers from industry developing programming that met the needs of industry and having industry actually guide that process with with with our educators, and ultimately opened up the Manufacturing Technology Institute, which now has two locations in the region, doing some technical training. But out of that, I think one of the things that really opened our eyes is you can build all the infrastructure you want and have all the great greatest latest technology and equipment. That’s not enough to get kids in the door. So late 2008 to get into 2009 We launched it was a national initiative but we got it licensed and lock launched the dream at do program here in our region. So we really is an industry turned our focus and to how can we get more embedded with the educational system and get kids out of school and into our manufacturing facilities. So facilities to see all the incredible innovation and technology that’s occurring, and help them see the opportunities and the jobs in our region. And we’ve done the same with educators and counselors to help them better understand what’s going on in our region in terms of innovation technology, and those career paths that are available right here in our backyard, and then compile that with all the training infrastructure that’s been developed. I think we’ve got a good, good formula here to put us on a better trajectory in the future.

Unknown Speaker  5:53

Yeah, this is Fenway. Yeah, go ahead, Damon. Well, it

Damon Pistulka  5:57

just is you hit the one thing that I think that we can talk to students, we can we can come into schools and talk about industry talk about manufacturing, they can come in Tours, but when the educators themselves don’t understand manufacturing, and the real opportunities across the spectrum, right? For the the the kid that got to want to get out of high school and get a job for the kid that’s going to go to a technical school of some sort, and the kids that are going to want to go to a four year degree and get a four year degree, understanding how they can all fit into the manufacturing spectrum, because there’s a spot for all these kids. But if the educators themselves and the counselors don’t understand it, you don’t have that long term lasting effect. I can go in and make I can make an impact one day on a classroom, but I can make an impact on a generation if we can get the educators and counselors involved.

Todd Tranum  6:50

You got it? That’s awesome. Yeah. And that that’s key. Yeah, influencing the influencers. Right. Yeah. And helping them be advocates for these these, these great career opportunities. And you’re absolutely right. I mean, they’re, I believe, you know, having kind of grown up in manufacturing that. And when I say that, it’s because my family has a history, in manufacturing. There’s an opportunity for everybody. I mean, even you know, even the person that likes to write, write, maybe they could be an English major, and have a strength in writing, but you need people in manufacturing, who can, who can write, who can do marketing, who can do finance, obviously, who can do engineering, and then you need those folks with that, that we call it the the manufacturing DNA, of, you know, really loving and enjoying working with machines and making parts and creating things and being part of that creative process. And understanding that it’s not what it was when my you know, my grandfather’s worked in manufacturing. It is high tech, advanced manufacturing, advanced technologies, 3d printing, you know, we, you know, you go back 15 years ago, and that seemed like kind of the new, you know, the new thing, right, everybody was trying to wrap their arms around their 3d printers everywhere. Right? Yeah. That whole additive manufacturing, which is really going to be probably the next generation of manufacturing is, it’s it’s already there. And you know, it’s on the verge of taking, you know, us into manufacturing 2.0 Yeah,

Curt Anderson  8:43

this is so good. And, man, we got so much to unpack and so much keep digging into here tight. And so what was an honor for me, is I had a front row seat of watching this, and again, this was like, 10 years ago or so. And you know, and I hate this. I’m gonna sound totally dumb and naive here, Damon, you know, I’m like, man, like, Why, Todd? Why, why are you attracting kindergarteners into manufacturing? Well, guess what, those kindergarteners back then are in college right now. And it was just so cutting edge watching, you know, it opened my eyes completely. really naive, like you said, you know, the previous generation, our grandfathers, I’m good friends with your father. So I’m going to I’m going to digress for a second Damon. So Todd’s father is just an amazing, incredible guy. So I knew Todd’s dad, actually before Todd. And so I’m going to show my age here, Todd. So 30 years ago, his father was a fierce fierce rugby player. Oh, so I actually had the honor. I played a couple of games with his dad man, he was oh my god, he was just tenacious on the rugby field. So that’s how I was connected with the train and family was through his his dad is just a great advocate for manufacturing on the human resource side. And so it wasn’t you know, Apple didn’t fall fire. Tide is carry the torch and just an amazing job. So Todd, let’s dig into so you know, you’re President of the Chamber of Commerce. So you’re helping entrepreneurs, you’re huge advocate, you’re a connector, so and so forth. But you’re also you’re you had two hats, president of the Manufacturers Association of the southern tier of New York. And so with the manufacturers you brought in, let’s use you talk, you mentioned the dream of do it program, I, again, had a front row seat of watch the amazing work that you did, I watched hundreds of kids and events that you put on, talk about some of the events that you did, and just some of the energy, the passion that you guys brought to young people with manufacturing with some of these activities that you put on. Yeah,

Todd Tranum  10:36

and again, you’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with. So you know, we’ve had some great program coordinators along the way that, you know, my job was to create the platform in the environment where these things could be successful, but they’re, you know, the Dewar’s were the people that really, you know, may make continue to make these these events happen. But, you know, just to give you a few examples, examples, and we talked about the technology tours, where we’ve taken 1000s of kids through manufacturing facilities, we’ve put an emphasis around bringing more women and girls into manufacturing, women are significantly underrepresented in in the manufacturing sector. So there’s a ton of opportunity there. So we’ve, you know, we’ve designed some clubs in the schools to really focus on getting more girls are engaged in these opportunities and engaged in STEM related opportunities. We do a couple really large events every year one is called stem wars. And we kind of consider it the Super Bowl for those kids in the school to, you know, who don’t have that opportunity necessarily to showcase their athletic abilities, but they got strong abilities in terms of creating things and making things and competing with robots, robotic devices and other types of projects. So we bring them together every year for a competition, we bring roughly 1000 kids together at our community college gymnasium, we bring in probably another 40 or 50 manufacturers to be there to talk to the kids and compete, we do a stem and manufacturing fair, in a neighboring county where we do some similar things in terms of bringing kids together with industry to help kids better connect again, you know, with these jobs, up job opportunities, but also showcase their skills and their project projects. And we’ve had the last few years, we’ve had kids bring in maker types of projects, just you know, that group of kids who just like to create things, think maybe they don’t want to necessarily be in the box of creating a you know, a bridge out of sticks, or, you know, doing the, the robotic thing but they want, they have some great ideas, and they just want to create, so they brought in, you know, some really cool projects to that. That part of the program. So, yeah, and you know, throughout the year, we have, we have a project called the dream it do it 500 Where we get kids together with engineers, and we give them just a few supplies, and they got to create, you know, very basic rubber band vehicle, budget, they have a budget, they’ve got a little bit of direction, and that we send them on their way. And with their budget, they can hire some engineering advice, and they can buy certain things, to to to to enhance their, their rubber band powered vehicle and then then compete with it. So you know, these are the types these are some of the hands on things that we think are important. And then we’ve that in our one of our coordinators has been a really a leader in this space. We call it dream it do it to point out so as Kurt was pointing out earlier, some of these kids we worked with in an early age or you know, their energy or senior year, and they’re like, We want more, we want more of a challenge. You know, we’ve been doing this other stuff, this is fun, but we’re ready for a bigger challenge. So we’re giving them more challenging projects. And a lot of the projects are coming from industry saying hey, here, we got this problem in our facility or we’re trying to think through a new part to be able to accomplish this. They give the students that challenge. And the students get the opportunity to use the equipment, spend time within the manufacturing facility asking the personnel questions to help solve you know, solve the problem. A lot of interaction from an internship opportunity for these these kids to get more ingrained in the manual. Factoring is right here in their backyard.

Curt Anderson  15:03

Yeah, this is phenomenal. And so a couple shout outs. Todd, we’ve got Diane buyer, she’s with tack down in Pennsylvania. Good morning, or good afternoon, Diane, hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving. Walter Green says this is fantastic. And this is, again, Todd, you know, I appreciate your humility. What, you know, very humble man, you know, you were doing this, you were doing workforce before workforce was cool. How about that workforce development. And again, years and years ago, I love what you just uncovered. And I’d love for you to take it another step further, you built the bridges with the educators and like Damon, you know, comment on that. We talked with a number of folks about workforce development. And I think you really did a phenomenal job of getting the buy in, from the educator standpoint, talk a little bit about so anybody out there listening, like, Gee, how did they do that talk about like successes? Or how did you get the buy in from the educators? I’ve been at meetings with you where superintendents are in the room, different, you know, higher level folks of education, local universities, president of, you know, one of the SUNY schools was on our board. Sure, a little bit about how you built those relationships?

Todd Tranum  16:08

Yeah, it Well, that’s what it’s about building relationships and trust. And we’ve found that, you know, the schools have been very open to working with us, it was just a matter of asking, and then having some infrastructure and a platform to make that connection. So you know, our coordinators, again, they do most of the work here, but you know, they they’re kind of that that connection that works with the the key people within the school to create the environment for these students to participate in these programs. And then, you know, connect them to industry. So it’s not all on the school, it’s not us going to the school saying, Hey, you should be putting your kids on a box and taking them over to come in zengin, or, or Siemens or, you know, I can go down the list. Now sleep Purina, we’re there to partner with them. And that’s, that’s better message the whole way through is that this isn’t all on you, as educators to figure this out, we need to work on this and figure it out together. And here, we have this resource, we have people who are working on this, we have manufacturers willing to open up their facilities, which again, 1015 years ago, not all companies were were comfortable with that there was some interest, but you know, again, they didn’t have the time to take on all the burden of doing that. You know, and it just wasn’t part of the mentality at that time in terms of workforce development and, and building that that talent pipeline. But that’s changed. And so I think it Kurt, we’ve talked a little bit the over the time about just kind of systems change part of systems changes, kind of a cultural shift, right? Create an environment where both the educational side and the private sector side are sort of comfortable in, in, in doing these types of things together that we hadn’t, hadn’t traditionally done prior prior to a lot of this. And I think the other aspect of it is following through and sticking with it. So many times we people come up with what they think is the solution, and maybe it runs a couple years or three years. And then oh, we’re done. Yeah, well, you’re never done with this. We’re never going to be done with this. Yeah. Fourth development challenge. So it’s, it’s a matter of following through being consistent. And just continuing to work away at this and, and building them and maintaining those relationships. That’s the key part.

Curt Anderson  18:50

Yeah. And I and I love you know, you you bought in to that dream it do it program early, you had you know, you’re you built another organization, that education coalition, you know, and again, just you know, working with the educators working with young folks and again, the nice thing is just think of all the victories and homeruns that you’ve hit going through that process. You know, you know I’ve worked closely with you know, some of your coordinators, you’re you have an amazing team no longer on your team Justin you know of course you know on the chamber team Sheila and how Holly Becky got guy anybody out there today big hello to you know, your team that you’ve built and you get you know, you do an amazing job of surrounding yourself with great people and I and again, got the privilege of watching that firsthand. From the education standpoint, talk a little bit about how about you know as you’ve watched these kids grow you know, with over a period of time any success stories or any like names that come to mind or anything that any of the kids that you now they know run the shop, you know, at the shop working any any case studies there that you could share?

Todd Tranum  19:52

Yeah, it was a couple of weeks ago I was over in neighboring county. Well, two counties over allocated County, yeah, at a place called Ask chemicals. And they’re taking me through the facility showing me their their production system. And in the work they do they they manufacture really high end filter, ceramic filters. And so they take me into this 3d lab printing lab where they, I mean, there’s like 40 machines. Oh, and even I mean, there was some technology in there I wasn’t familiar with, I mean, they were like, dipping these, they were doing additive manufacturing by actually dipping the, the shell of something into this, this resin material I’m more familiar with, you know, the printing process than than it’s been anyways. Right? I get introduced over in the corner working, he’s got three or it looked like the Star Track, you know, set up for computers, screens, you’re running, running some CAD, over there designing some stuff, keeping an eye on the 3d printers is is a student that are coordinator connected with that company? via a tour. Right. So it sounds to in and I mean, you know, there’s, I know, there’s a lot of them out there, and we’re talking about humans, so it’s hard to track. Yeah, yeah. Just just to be realistic about it. Time and time again, you know, as I have the opportunity to go through these facilities, I run into faces that look familiar. Yeah. And that’s great to see. And it’s great to see them contributing back standing near and contributing back into into our economy, we’ve got the three counties we represent, these are three of the most rural counties of New York State, we produce $7.5 billion. Wow, every year 7.5 billion. So it’s a big deal, manufacturing continues to be a big deal. You talking 18,000 family sustaining jobs, 100 105 million in payroll, probably another 24 241 million in benefits. Its manufacturing continues to be a big deal. And I think, you know, there’s this perception that we got to bring in the next big company, and we’ve lost so many big companies. Well, what’s happened over time, is we may not have as many of the big companies that we once had. But we have a lot of medium and small sized manufacturers. And Curt knows Kurt’s work with a lot of them in our region, helping them with their their e commerce efforts. And that’s where the growth is going to be, you know, it’s going to be with a small and medium sized manufacturing. And I will say this, I, you know, this pandemic is, has been held on a lot of people and a lot of businesses, we learned something, we learned how important our supply chain is in the United States. And I hope we take the lessons from that at both the federal level and the state level, to make some significant policy changes, to just really strengthen and support manufacturing, and realize that it’s going to grow out of these smaller mid sized companies.

Curt Anderson  23:29

Now, you’re hitting it right on the head, and I think 75% of all manufacturers are 20 employees and less, you know, on a national scope, and that Reppert you know, and it’s funny, because, like, you know, we’ll talk about the MEP network in a second, you know, we Damon, I work with a lot of the MEPs manufacturing extension partnerships, in no matter what state you talk to, it could be, you know, rural, urban, they’re like, wow, you know, we do a lot of small manufacturers, it really doesn’t matter where you are that, you know, um, you know, again, 70 80% of all manufacturers are 2020 employees less, they are absolutely critical to our economy, and our supply chain, as you’re mentioning tied with. So I want to dig into, let’s say, side, take a sidestep here. So again, so guys, if you’re just joining us, Kevin, from John alpha, good morning, Kevin, hope you had an awesome Thanksgiving. You are the president of mass Manufacturers Association of the southern tier, let’s talk a little bit about the benefits for a manufacturer to belong to their local association. And then let’s dig into a little bit about what’s going on, you know, with your association and what you see coming out of the, you know, I’m gonna say coming out of the pandemic, but hopefully as we’re living within the pandemic, I guess I shouldn’t say

Todd Tranum  24:40

yeah, so, I’m gonna make us an assumption, and it’s probably a pretty safe one. Most manufacturers associations across United States are really focused in and honed in on the workforce issue in some way. And we might not all be doing the same thing. Through the same strategies, because every community’s you know, is a little bit different and different things work in different places. But, you know, I believe, and I think our members would tell you, you know, the work we’ve done done around workforce development is been extremely important than making sure that that industry voice is there working with the educational system, or post secondary institutions and our governmental entities to help make clear, you know, what that challenge is, so I think that is an important, incredibly important role for manufacturers associations to be involved in, we do a lot of advocacy work in the region, and at the state level with some of our state level partners. You know, there’s often times in New York State regular regulatory changes that we have to adjust to and understand, so part of our job is to interpret what’s coming down the line, at times, you know, part of our job is to push back on certain things we are concerned about in terms of how they’ll affect our company, companies and their employees. You know, and the third part is right now, and in terms of a big issue, and it’s not something we’re directly involved in, but, you know, the whole supply chain, you know, right now, is is huge. You know, and that’s, you know, that’s gonna take some, you know, some some federal initiatives and st things get worked out within the sub supply chains worldwide. But those are really the top three issues right now top of mind to manufacturers, or our workforce, you know, advocacy issues, and I time with advocacy, just, you know, the, how we manage the pandemic, and COVID. In our workplace, we’ve part of our role through all of this is just embed, push out as much information as we can, but in a way that is easily interpreted, you know, by our customers, because you know, and then in the midst of this, there was just so much coming in it everybody, we just tried to cut through the chase and get what was most pertinent to our members. And that’s what we continue to do. And, again, you know, that other issue that’s still lingering out there supply chain?

Curt Anderson  27:22

Yeah. So it’s so critical for manufacturers, you know, whether it’s a Association within your own industry, or your local association, you know, we do you know, we talked about this frequently, Damon about how, you know, entrepreneurs, you know, they’re just especially manufacturers, man, they’re just nose to the grindstone, they’re just trying to get orders out today. And it’s hard to like sticking, you know, put your head above the the tunnel, if you will, like, you know, hey, what’s going on what’s going on here. And, you know, it’s great bill, you know, again, I’ve had the honor of, you know, serving on board, you know, boards with you and you know, multiple manufacturers, presidents of their companies. And it’s great when you see them networking, they’re collaborating, talk a little bit about, you know, you I’ve watched, you know, you do a great job of, you know, the MEP network, SPDC SBDC, network, you know, kind of playing quarterback, when a manufacturer comes to you, or has a problem, even if, you know, again, limited resources that you have, as an association, you do a great job of passing a ball to somebody talk a little bit about how critical that collaboration pieces for in your role,

Todd Tranum  28:24

absolutely critical, you know, and, as an association, we see that really is, is part of our role is to, you know, make those referrals, you know, and sometimes it’s a company looking for a supplier of something specific in the region and making that connection. Or it may be a need for some technical expertise and some consulting around getting a Six Sigma program started. Or doing a lean, you know, me manufacturing exercise. That’s not what we do. That’s not, that’s not, that’s not our lane. So we have partners, we have our MEP insight consulting, in our region that we do a lot of work with partnering with on these things. And in referrals. Come um, you know, in the, in the, you know, again, in the throes of the pandemic, we worked very closely with a small business development center, because they were sort of that point of contact through the Small Business Administration around the various loan programs, right, with our, you know, our County Economic Development resources as well. Our job our job is not to reinvent or to reproduce or duplicate. Our job is to say, hey, these resources are here. Here’s how you can leverage them and make sure our members are getting in touch with us.

Curt Anderson  29:48

Yeah, that’s fantastic. I want to so Walter, thank you for the comment. He dropped a great note here. The r&d credit provides immediate and impactful tax relief, and is available to help American manufacturers be surely Your ship is maximizing the opportunity to grow the business, add talent and remain innovative. And so how about and I know we’re coming to the time here time and I know you’re super busy guy, I want to be mindful of your day will wind down on this? So you know, you mentioned so we’re big e Commerce Guys, you know, that’s, you know, I’m always throwing on my E commerce marketing hat. Talk a little bit about, you know, what you’re seeing for manufacturers on the E commerce or the marketing side? Are you seeing any AR now that COVID hit? You know, you know, you and I talked about this for years, you know, a lot of resistance out of this Internet things a fad? We’re not going to use E commerce, you know, website, just kind of an afterthought. Yeah, that changed everything. What are you seeing through through the pandemic unmanufactured site as far as like marketing, online initiatives, e commerce, what are you seeing in your field?

Todd Tranum  30:49

Yeah, you know, I think manufacturers have woken up over the past few years around the value of E commerce, the importance of having, you know, a strong web presence to begin with, to highlight the the diversity of products are making, as well as the innovation that takes place within their facilities. And I, you know, and again, my turn to come back to you, Kurt and say, hey, you’ve been transformational. In our area, I think around this conversation, you’ve been a trusted voice, you’ve had experience in this space, with your own businesses, and you can’t you speak the language. So you’ve built that trust. And you know, out of that, you know, some companies here in our community have had some some strong successes, and it doesn’t take long in a small community for where to get around, around, hey, it’s working for you. Gentlemen, illicit down the road, we better we better be taking a serious look at this and understand what they’re doing and, and how it’s working. I am also noticing to the companies we’re seeing companies start to, you know, use more social media, yeah, more video content, to help tell their story about what they do and what they produce. You know, those are all part of it. It’s all part of that, that that larger marketing and communications solution?

Damon Pistulka  32:23

Well, it’s, it’s good to hear that you get the feeling that and are seeing that that more people are adopting it, especially and when you think about the changing demographics of both the buyers for manufactured goods and and the employees, I mean, being around my kids that are both in their 20s. The over the Thanksgiving weekend, I mean, they spend a ton of time looking at their phones, watching videos, I mean, you know, three of us, we still turn on the TV and watch the channel. My kids don’t have any comprehension of what that is really anymore, right? They’re streaming something they want specifically from a specific app could be still be some of the Netflix, Hulu, that kind of stuff. But the video content is so relevant to them. And they watch just as much around their business kind of videos on YouTube and other places as they do anything else. And that’s one of the things that manufacturers I think the the ability to pick up your cell phone and go pool this is might be cool. Somebody might like that. They’re going to get people learning a lot more about them just by doing that simple stuff. Yeah, it’s it’s cool to see and the demographic changes is driving it.

Todd Tranum  33:36

Yeah. Well, it ties back a little bit to to dream a do it. So I mean, you know, we were limited in what we could do over the past year in terms of interacting with kids or getting large groups of kids together. So you know, that’s what we turn to we went to the business, we said, hey, can we walk through your, your facility with our iPhone? And can we get something together? So we at least can get some content out to the kids in the school? Yeah, it’s great. We’ve got ways to work around some of these challenging situations.

Curt Anderson  34:09

It’s awesome. And this really ties in all together. Damien, you do an awesome job of preaching about, you know, in for the manufacturer, to you know, I’m sure you run into the folks that like right now they are at capacity, they couldn’t, you know, they don’t want to talk about e commerce, they don’t want to talk about marketing, they’re just trying to get product out the door. They’re trying to get product in the door, to get product out the door. They’re trying to get, you know, bring in quality workforce, to help them get product out the door. So the thought of marketing, but Damon does a great job, you know, and again, this isn’t his wheelhouse per se, of like when we do our E commerce training with folks of like, Hey, you have to have a strong digital footprint for that millennial for that 20 Something because guess what they’re doing? If you have a bad website, if you have no social presence and you’re in your competitor down the street does, guess where they’re going to go work, you know, all things remaining equal, and that’s where video comes in. So again, you’re not just targeting customers, instead of your workforce as customers, right? You’re trying to put we’re sports fans, you’re trying to build that killer team. You know, video is very powerful put it out there, let people know what’s going on. In you know, again, like before, this was really, you know, hey, we need social for on the recruiting side. Again, we saw it firsthand Daymond you should see these events that tide puts on, you know, 1000s of kids. Yeah, going to the energy, the passion is off the charts. And now we can the kids can see that on their phone. Kids don’t have to be in our in our area, they can be outside of the area and see this activity going on. And so again, for the folks that are driving by that manufacturer, like hey, what goes on in that big building I’ve been driving by for the past five years. Now they know and we don’t necessarily have to go behind the wall, they can put it on a video and see the creativity, innovation, everything else that’s going on. So this is awesome. Steven Lord, my friend, Steven Lord, he’s a local guy. So I use YouTube to learn master. He’s, uh, he’s he was at high nine for years. So he’s, he’s a good dude. So Todd, we’re gonna, we’re gonna wrap the wrap up any? What do you seen? While we close out on this? What are you seeing on the horizon? For manufacturers? We’re trying to close out 2021 Strong we want to come in and 2022 just even stronger. What’s on your agenda? You know, as President of your association, and what do you seen for 2022?

Todd Tranum  36:26

Yeah, we’re busy, or manufacturers are busy. The only thing holding us back is workforce, we literally have manufacturers turning away work, because we can’t find people. And so it’s going to be a lot of the same in terms of you know, working through this issue. Using some of the chat techniques we’ve been using that have worked, probably grandfathering, some that haven’t had the ROI we’ve hoped for. We’re looking forward to this next year. Because there are a couple of new things we’re working on. We’re actually using a technology platform called tallow that were enables us to load students have students build profiles at the age of 13, in kind of a closed network that connects them to our post secondary institutions and our manufacturers. So we’re excited about getting our dream and do it participants on that platform so we can better understand what they decide to do. And we’re working on a much larger regional initiative focused on on systems change we’ve got I mentioned we are in a three county rural region, we have 50. Repeat that 50 school districts. All right. The county I’m sitting in right now we got about 128,000 people in 18 school districts. So the question becomes how do you maximize that infrastructure of 50 school districts? We got like six post post secondary institutions, we got to workforce investment boards. We’re looking at taking our activities and our initiatives to another level, what we think it really involves how do we better leverage this system in such a way that the better serves our economy, and in this case, our manufacturers. So that’s what we’re, we’re digging into this next year, and really looking at significant systems alignment and systems change in our region, to better fuel our economy.

Curt Anderson  38:32

Nice. This is awesome. And on top of it, Damon tide is a phenomenal musician. So you know, I had to throw that in there tag free guitar player, so Oh, he shares his passion manufacturing music. Great Father, wonderful family, man. So Todd, I just I can’t I want to tip my hat to you. I just want to express how much I appreciate your friendship, your leadership, what you do for our community. Dude, I just I your gray hair brother, you know, I’ve watched it firsthand. You’ve changed you’re making a difference dude,

Todd Tranum  39:04

you realize what we’re trying and appreciate the support wouldn’t happen without people like you. So

Curt Anderson  39:12

that’s it you’re you’re in tremendous inspiration. So guys, we’re gonna wind down man we I know we could keep talking all day here. We’re gonna mind down so let’s do the guys you know, take this to heart. You know if you know young folks, you know, you know let them know how amazing opportunities are just laying in front of young people, social media and you know Todd, we collaborate together on a social media intern program for kids in manufacturing, wonderful success. Our mutual friend Nicole segro just reached out to me she started a podcast with high school students to start interviewing manufacturers she owns and she’s women business owned. Woman in manufacturing herself. universal tool. Great manufacturer says guys tons of cutting edge opportunities connect with Todd train them on lean In here, guys check out his profile, man. He’s just a great advocate for manufacturing. Guys. We wish you an awesome awesome week. Friday Damon we have man we have yep, I was gonna say that. Yeah, we have Jay John Barrows, JD girls, he is a sales guru. Three almost 400,000 followers on LinkedIn he is authority man. Bring your pens pads paper. I put that out someone says hey Kurt, you know the millennial said What’s up? What’s a pencil Kurt? You know? Yeah, so bring your tablets. Take notes this Friday 130 on our Friday show, Todd, God bless you, brother. Thank you and hello to you and your entire family. Sarah, your wonderful wife, your dad, you and your entire family. So thank you for your time. Hang on one second with us. And you guys go out and have an awesome awesome week. Thank you in one