Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Ann Wyatt

Curt Anderson 0:00
I want to Oh man. We’re already live Damon. Happy Monday, my friend. How are you?

Damon Pistulka 0:07
I’m doing great. Kurt had a good weekend.

Curt Anderson 0:10
Oh my goodness gracious, Easter, Passover, whatever you celebrate just a wonderful, glorious weekend. And here we are today. Now, Damon before we bring out our guests. Oh, oh my gosh, he’s on the stage already in. AR How are you my friend? Happy Monday to you.

Ann Wyatt 0:29
Happy Monday. Yes, I’m good. I’m excited to be here with you guys today.

Curt Anderson 0:33
Oh, my goodness, gracious. Man. Like I feel my heart just pounding right now. I’m like, I’m almost nervous. Damon, I don’t you don’t get nervous when our guests is like, this is a big one. Man. This is a big day for us today. Post we, sir. Hope everybody had a wonderful, glorious weekend. And how was your weekend?

Ann Wyatt 0:50
It was really good. It was really good. I just take some downtime and just hang out with my little one did the Easter thing and she was very like, chill.

Curt Anderson 1:01
It was very good. Fantastic posts on Friday. And I believe your son’s name is Phoenix that handsome man was on LinkedIn and you show it you post a little post on a teacher sent you a note or a picture of him at school that you weren’t sure what was going on there with with Phoenix.

Ann Wyatt 1:17
Yeah, so Phoenix. He is just so he’s the most curious individual. us so inquisitive. And I knew you know, when he was around six months old and started crawling that and he started taking like my like the wheels off the bottom of my coffee table. And then started taking like the air vents out of the Force. I was like, we’ve got a problem here. Like I was like, I don’t think this is normal. Then he’s just super inquisitive, always very interested in learning new things, how things work. He wants to know the how of everything. So his teacher does a really good job. We’re gonna miss her next year, honestly. Because his teacher does such a good job with incorporating activities into their lesson plans. And I thought really clever, like, the sink float thing is very popular on a show called flippy adult. If you guys don’t have littles, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about. But they basically put things in a fish tank, and it’s like, will this sink or float? And he loves. He loves doing stuff like that at home. I’m already finding like little experiments in the refrigerator. And yeah, all kinds of fun things. So he really enjoyed that. He talked about it the entire week, he brought home the piece of paper and was like, I just knew it with float. I just knew it would float or whatever. And, you know, she let them draw out what they were kind of seeing or whatever. And then he was like, it does float that he said, but if you take all the air out of it, it sinks. And I’m like, so cool. That’s so fun for you, you know. So if you had a great, had a great time.

Curt Anderson 3:09
She took the words right out of my mouth. We Happy Monday for you hope you had a wonderful weekend. He’s with a with a mother like and why it sounds like a future, engineering them in the making here. And this is absolutely awesome. So thank you for sharing that. So let’s let’s Alright, so let’s dig into you and your background here. And so you are a recruiting guru for anybody. Can’t imagine anybody not familiar with and you’re everywhere on LinkedIn. You’re a keynote speaker. You’re all over the place doing amazing work. Let’s take a deep dive. Let’s go back in time. You’re a Western Kentucky grad. When you were in college came out of college. What was life taking you at that time on a college?

Ann Wyatt 3:48
Yeah, so I graduated in 2010. And bowling green. I don’t know if you guys are super familiar. Damon, you said you used to live in Middle Tennessee. So you’re probably very familiar with Bowling Green. So it’s you know, it’s a lot of automotive. Oh, yeah. So yeah, that’s right. Yeah, and so when I graduated college, I felt that Bowling Green was a very was very interesting to me, because I graduated, you know, right after the recession, and of course, Bowling Green is all most all automotive. You know, it feeds that plant, right? And other plants in Tennessee. So, what I really liked about Bowling Green, and kind of why I stayed there for as long as I did was that I thought that it was interesting because even during the middle of a recession, what I thought was a really good sign was that you know, every people were still people were still spending money to some extent because the like the businesses like the other local businesses around the area, were able to like sustain that whole time. So I thought, you know, that’s really a good sign given given the climate. But what was interesting was it was very hard. It was still like no one was really hiring at that time, if you know what I mean. And me being a poor oak brush grad college student, I needed internet’s. And so I live very close to the Career Center, I lived on Magnolia Street, and the Career Center was over on Chestnut Street. And I just, it was easy for me to go there and do my job searching because they had free internet as a resource. And so I just hit every day, and I was like, I’m just here to job search you. I mean, we got to that point, like, it’s just me, I’m here to job search again. And one day when I went in the front desk receptionist asked me if I didn’t want to work there. And I said, Me, you know, I was so excited. I was like, you want me? And she said, this was her response. She said, Yeah, I mean, you’re. Anyway,

Curt Anderson 6:12
I love that. So. So guys, time. Yeah. Let me pause right there on your end. So, you know, anytime you’re looking for when you know, that’s how Daymond I got married, you know, like, we just kept going up every day every day. Yeah. Worked out. Right Damon, you’re out there job searching trying to land that client channel and that customer would a great the and when you shared that with me before I absolutely love that story just keeps showing up, you put in the wraps. Next thing, you’re you’re blessed with a job. So what went on from there?

Ann Wyatt 6:41
So from there, I worked at the front desk. And that was through actually that was through a deco I’m not sure if you’re familiar with them, but they are you know, they’re like a Tim service personnel services firm. And that’s kind of who the state works with. So I worked for Deco. And I worked the front desk, and I would help people, you know, in the self job search area. And I would also check people in. And at that time, I mean, it was pretty I remember the first few weeks coming home after working the front desk all day. And I would just fall. It was It was rough, because I was checking in probably 600 800 people a day. Whoa. Yeah, at that time. And that was back when we had federal extensions and State extension. So essentially had like two years of unemployment. So I’m not sure if you guys are, you know, remember that or not. But I just I, I was really eager to help people because I had been there. You know, I mean, that’s how I ended up there. And the manager of the office at the time asked me if I would be interested in coming on with the state full time. And I was like, Yeah, you know, I’d love to meet. I would love to so I started, I started working as a workforce development specialist one as a, again, as more of like the state equivalents of a temporary under a federally funded grant. And then when that grant expired, I was actually promoted to workforce development specialist to because we had been gifted and opening. And I know if you’re in state government, you’re like, that’s not very common. So it’s like, it’s very much like a gift. Yeah, so from there, I managed in a satellite office, two days a week in Franklin, Kentucky, I worked with employers on their job searching placement, job orders, managing their job orders, I think at one time I was managing, you know, over 1000 job orders at a time, some of those need more attention than others. So some of those are quite automated, but others, you know, needed. They wanted very specific matching. And they were very vocal about this is what I need, this is what I want. Some of them wanted to do job fairs. And that would either be like a group event so like with a partnering agency, like the Chamber of Commerce, the industrial authority, the technical college, things of that nature, which I would coordinate and then assist with the advertising and marketing for that event, and do all that stuff. And then other other job fairs were very much like we just want to come in use your facility and interview we want to be there from you know, tended to and we want to do 30 minute slots, and it was my job to call and book those slots for them. I got into recruiting doing with the Workforce Development Office, I actually made my first placement ever did out of state controller for startup greenfield site. I assisted with greenfields in assessing their workforce development needs and assessing workforce like what they needed. I’ve coordinated groundbreakings, I’ve coordinated grand openings. But together Labor Market Information profiles saying this is what we have in this area, if you should choose to come here that was actually used in the successful recruitment strategies, economic development, agencies to bring business in. I’ve done all kinds of things.

Damon Pistulka 10:24
You know, you talk about that Greenfield process. And I’ve been through that before when, when I was in South Dakota, and I built the first plant for the company, outside of the state. And we went into Middle Tennessee and built it and you’re talking about that workforce development, when you go into an area that you’re not familiar with. That’s critical. It’s critical, I can remember meeting with the local people and that were in charge of that, and how helpful it was really to get an idea of the local environment, introductions to people. And all the the the, just the helpful. This is how we hire here. This is how this is how Labor and Industries are not in the Labor and Industries. But how workers compensation works in the state. This is how you know, all there’s so much you’ve got to learn going into a place like this. And it’s so helpful. And I should talk about that. It was bringing back memories of just how critical that is for these companies coming in to get that information.

Ann Wyatt 11:23
Yeah, and a lot of these are international suppliers. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, it’s

Damon Pistulka 11:27
I’m sure no idea. Yeah, yeah. No idea. Yeah, no idea what they’re doing. They’re coming from France or something like that. And you know, it’s like, what do we do? And yeah, but

Ann Wyatt 11:37
like, like, the employment law is different. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka 11:41
Yeah. Just everything, everything. So that’s cool.

Curt Anderson 11:45
Right, cool, super exciting work that you’re doing at an extremely young age very high, with a lot of responsibility. And it just goes to show it with a talent and skills, that and why it brings to the table. So and let’s fast forward to 2015, you decided to take the plunge into entrepreneurship. What inspires you what, let’s go there, and what was going on in 2015, that you took that plunge.

Ann Wyatt 12:10
So by 2015, we were getting and major influx of green fields, we were getting a major influx of green fields at this point. So I mean, I’ve probably worked with, oh, gosh, I mean, I mean, definitely over 10 And I would have to sit here and count, you know, but we’re in double digits as greenfields. And I was thinking, you know, I don’t really know that. From the people. I mean, that was my thing. I was like, I don’t really see the people, I don’t know, I don’t see the people. So the last thing that you want to do, though, with workforce development is the last thing you want to do is set, you know, bring bring all of this in, yeah, and then not have the workforce to sustain it. So I felt very called to work just with manufacturing companies, and really help them recruit for this workforce, and help them find other options like people candidate pools that were outside of just this immediate area. So a big thing that I’ve been able to do for my clients, especially on the Franklin Kentucky border, the borders, Tennessee, is identify talent in Tennessee, and bring them and bring them to Kentucky or in other, you know, regions that maybe it’s not like a full relocation, but it’s like, Hey, can get you a U haul, you know, or we can do a few months of rent or whatever you need to get them here. So that’s really where I’ve had the most success with with that. But I basically said, you know, I’d love to help in a more like targeted way strategic way, and really focus all of my attention and my energy on this because I really felt like it was critical at that point. And so I asked my clients, I said, you know, you know, what do you think about this? Some of the companies I worked with, that ended up being and they were like, yes, you know, I was like So you think that I should? Yes. Would you hire me? Yes. It’s like okay, let’s do it.

Curt Anderson 14:34
So and let’s let’s touch on this for a second. And so and having those incent customers obviously helps them drive that decision. But would I want to backup you said I decided I love manufacturing, and we love you know, women and manufacturing millennials and manufacturing. We’d like to talk about Daymond John, we talked about diversity manufacturing. And what’s awesome is here you are sharing your passion, your spirit in manufacturing, you could have gone in the other end history’s outside of order, you know, kind of you’re in that lane, is there other what inspires you? And what drives your passion for manufacturing?

Ann Wyatt 15:08
So that’s a really good question, because I did not grow up thinking that I was gonna be in manufacturing because both of my parents worked for the state of Kentucky and retired. I was very focused in I mean, my degree is basically focused in public administration. I mean, I thought that this was just, you know, I would be in state government, you know, but I think what really inspired me to be in manufacturing was first of all, going into the facilities and seeing the machinery, the robotics, all of that stuff. I was like, you know, and I tell everybody, I’m like, it was like, the Cupid and the arrows and the heart. It was like that. Yeah. Struck your heart. Right. Yeah. Yes. And then another thing that I really was impressed with, especially having the experience that I had getting out of college, and not really having many options for employment, right? Was the wage, like the wages that, you know, when you’re pulling like wage profiles, either hourly or sourly salary, and you’re able to see that information, you’re privy to that information? You know, how many how much somebody has made in a quarter of a year? And you look at that, and you’re like, you’re kind of like, I, I can I can make $80,000? Here, right? Yeah, doing this, right. Yeah. So that’s something that really was inspiring to me, because I was like, Well, you know, I went to school or whatever. But I have a lot of friends that, you know, didn’t go to school and made I mean, make. I mean, one guy graduated, he graduated a couple of years ahead of me. I mean, he makes triple digits, he is a he’s an like, operator for a steel mill, and women a mill. And he, I mean, he was like, I’m not going to college, I’m going to work.

Curt Anderson 17:18
Right? So let’s, man, we can’t let that go. And we’ve got it. Let’s double down on that a little bit. So you know, as we’re really driving, you know, there’s been labor challenge challenges since COVID. And, you know, unfortunately, manufacturing hasn’t been front of mind or maybe kind of took a backseat. So if you’re taught you do a lot of speaking, if you’re talking to young folks, millennials, maybe let’s go younger than millennials. Let’s hit the kids that are in. You’re speaking to kids in high school, junior high college. Yeah. There are enormous opportunities in manufacturing, what’s wonderful, it’s like, it’s just not me and Damon sitting here saying it, it’s like you are on the frontlines. seeing it firsthand that there are enormous, incredible, wonderful opportunities for folks and not make a living, not only make a living, but they can provide for a family, they have a future share a little bit about some of the stories or some of the things that you see firsthand.

Ann Wyatt 18:11
Yeah, no, that’s a great, that’s another great question. And I’ll tell you a little bit about notice on the on the show announcement, like on LinkedIn, you added the junior achievement to that, and I love that. So what I would do with Junior Achievement is when I was really active with that, I always requested the high school kids, because I don’t know, for whatever reason, I’m just that person. Everybody’s like, why would you do that? Because we’re the ones are getting ready to make the serious decisions. That’s why and, you know, you can kind of reason with them. And if you put it in a way, like, Oh, that makes sense, then, you know, it just it I think that resonates. So I worked a lot with Junior Achievement teaching the program. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with that program. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Okay. So they give you the curriculum. And basically, you just kind of go over that curriculum every week. And I always made time to just sneak that in there. Like, oh, by the way, this would be a really good applicable, you know, case for manufacturing or whatever. And then really trying to get to know the kids. And at the end of that experience, I would always go through the roster, the class roster, and I would pull job like career paths for them. So I would I would try, you know, as best as I could, right? I would say, Hey, have you looked at this just trying to plant that seed in their head? Just saying, you know, look, and then I would always, you know, circle the salary, by the way. Yeah. So I think that’s really an important conversation to have and if you can find opportunity He’s like, either through junior achievements, or some other greats, some other great programs out there that are similar, right? Then that’s the that’s the perfect chance to say what guys, and I’ve shown them I’ve brought up, even like on the projector, you know, that was very cool with the projector, got my laptop out, hooked it up and was like, Look, check this out. Right? And then check this, check what they’re offering now here. Yeah, yeah, it’s good money.

Curt Anderson 20:29
Exactly. And it gives, you know, gives alternatives and options for kids just you know, college isn’t, isn’t their path is in their direction. And what’s wonderful. So there’s all sorts of university programs, if Daymond I work closely with the manufacturing extension partnerships out there, they have all sorts of workforce development programs, your local chamber of commerce, your local manufacturing, trade associations,

Ann Wyatt 20:54
average authorities,

Curt Anderson 20:56
the adjustable agencies, one so forth. So there, there are enormous opportunities out there. So for anybody out there, your kids, if there’s any young people out there, man, this is a great inspiring story here. Now and let’s light into your an industry. 4.0 enthusiast. Yeah, like, so for Damon Knight aren’t young guys anymore, unfortunately. So, you know, if there’s, if there’s folks out there that hey, what’s industry? 4.0? And please walk us through that explain what is for industry? 4.0? And what is an enthusiast of industry? 4.0?

Ann Wyatt 21:30
So that’s a great question. And I do, I do want to clarify, I’m an enthusiast. I’m not a practitioner. Because I don’t, I don’t go in and do the programming, and I don’t go set the machinery and I don’t get the robots to you know, do all the things and I don’t have the you know, the software for the robots to do all the things. But as an enthusiast and from my perspective, industry, 4.0 is just the ability to digitalize your manufacturing process be there by creating like digital twins or some sort of digital representation where you can get ahead of your manufacturing process. And you know, really focus on other things such as continuous improvement, culture, that type of thing. I know that’s not the prettiest definition of initial point out. But

Curt Anderson 22:23
that was that was spot on. I love it. In there. So, you know, let’s take a deeper dive there. Let’s go into some man, this is juicy. Let’s there’s a lot of great information here. You’ve talked automation. We talk a lot about robotics, we have mutual friends with a Chris Lukey. Megan is here today. Let me Oh, he’s a fierce advocate. She’s out there, you know, this person didn’t show up. And you work? Do you work career changers? And do you work career changers?

Ann Wyatt 22:53
Um, well, the best thing that I can do for if you’re wanting to do a career change would assess like what type of career change you’re wanting to make, where your applicable skills would be and where those transferable skills would be. So that would be you would need to probably connect with me on LinkedIn and then shoot me a DM Yeah, cool. And well, we’ll go over that. Yeah, perfect. And

Curt Anderson 23:15
then our dear friend, Nicole Donnelly’s day man, if you’re not connected with with Nicole and you to view need to connect, you guys are high because a lot of inspiration here. So let’s take a deeper dive. Okay. So again, you’ve peaked that are folks out there that man and you’ve really piqued my curiosity in this industry? 4.0 I’m a small manufacturer, you know, the average manufacturer is 20 Folks, or below, right? Average manufacturer 75% of all manufacturers are 20 folks and below, maybe they have limited resources, they have limited. You know, financial means what have you. And sometimes they might think that that’s above their realm. Let’s let’s take a deep dive on. What are some opportunities for our small manufacturers in industry? 4.0?

Ann Wyatt 23:55
Yeah, that’s a great question. And that’s something that I’m always like, you know, because I love my SMEs. Those are my people. So that’s something that I’ve really felt like, has been kind of this focus point for them is how do we bring industry 4.0 to our facility, because obviously, we’re running like can’t stop running. But you know, at the same time, if we’re not running, it’s down. We’re, we’re fixing it and all this, but I think just having that plan and really partnering with another industry 4.0 provider, like a person that can walk you through that process that is specific to the SME, and I have been fortunate to connect with some of those folks. To me, I really think that there needs to be an emphasis on the culture shift. So that’s where, you know, I can provide some assistance for you as far as like high performing teams, building high performing teams, assessing high performing teams, that type of thing. Because I think that that’s going to be the culture of manufacturing future. I think it has to be when you look at like the automation that’s involved, and you’re looking at kind of the workforce and what, what, that’s how that’s going to change. And I think that you know, a people, I think Jake Hall posted this awesome meme earlier if you haven’t seen it, Jake. So he essentially was like, robots, or what was it robots? are creating jobs, not taking them change? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think everybody’s like, Oh, robots are going to pick her up still, to a certain extent. So really, like working with your workforce. This is not taking your jobs, because really, in the grand scheme of things, you know, by 2030, there’s going to be like, 2.1 million open jobs. Really, what we’re doing is we’re making you have more, you know, we’re giving you more meaningful work, because we’re letting you empower you to make better decisions that are business driven. And not just not like, you know, I’m gonna go to work every day, there’s this monotony, I’m just gonna load partner machine, and whatever, run the machine all day. So I think that’s going to be very attractive to

Damon Pistulka 26:17
the younger, we don’t adopt if we don’t adopt it, we’re not going to be able to run,

Curt Anderson 26:20
right? We won’t be enough people. Right? In you know, what, it’s always a fear of change. And I do want it before. So Megan, thank you. So David, you’re friends with young man, we love you, Chris, thank you for joining us today. And you and Chris definitely need to connect guys are fierce advocates, women in manufacturing, we have a great crowd here today. So Chris, thank you. But I man, you covered a couple of great things. I was gonna ask you, the future manufacturing, we’re going to come back to that because you started scratching that surface. But let’s talk about automation, because it’s automatic, you know, like, oh, it’s gonna take my job, you know, we could go back to the Luddites of the early 1800s. In the textile industry in England, they were like, they were rebelling, because these machines are going to take our jobs, they didn’t take our jobs. When the trains came around, they were going to take jobs, when cars were invented. They you know, if you were you know, a blacksmith man, you know, yeah, that wasn’t a great place to be. But historically, you know, and we’ve seen this in retail, we see this with everything, right? And I know, it’s your, it’s immediate, human by human nature, we don’t like change, but we need to embrace this change. So I want to go there, and you do a great job with culture. And that’s a big thing. So guys, what I love about and here, so think about this, if any of us, you know, there’s a lot of marketers or different facets that are listening today, and you need an expert in recruiting and is definitely a person, please connect with and here on LinkedIn, she would love to talk to you about recruiting, recruiting, culture building, and that’s the thing and is that you’re not just filling bodies, you’re not just like, hey, I’m gonna, you know, just bring in a an individual or a person to fill that space. about building that. When you face that, when you face maybe an environment, maybe maybe it’s the individual, maybe it’s the company itself, maybe they need a little culture, shift, a little culture improvement, how do you bring your superpowers to that table to help kind of shine the light on that culture shift?

Ann Wyatt 28:16
That’s a great question. That is a great question. And, you know, I’m always sometimes I get some trouble, because I’m like, you know, if you’re looking for high capacity, high volume, I’m just not really, that’s not really my thing. And as honest, as honest as I can be here. I want to set you up for success. And I want to set the candidate up for success. You know, and one of the biggest ways to do that,

Curt Anderson 28:46
about my job moment right there. So and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you know, what a person of integrity to say, hey, you know what, what I love about the and you’re, you’re, you’re saying, I’m not for everybody, and I’m not going to pretend that my clients are for everybody. So please, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to emphasize that that’s a great testament to you, that you know, who your clients are, you know, you know, you’re striving for their success. Please continue. Yeah,

Ann Wyatt 29:12
yeah, no, I think that’s so you know, I just get irritated with that sometimes, because I’m like, Look, you know, I know, I know, but what you really, you know, you got to look at here, I don’t look because I want this person to you know, I’m like, I’m a romantic at heart. I’m like, Yeah, you know, this person is gonna, you know, this company, and they’re just gonna, like, have some sort of career marriage and you know, whatever. But no, in all seriousness, I don’t want to put somebody somewhere where I’m setting them up to fail. I do not want to give my clients someone to set them up for a miss, hire and fail on Um, recruiting is very expensive. You guys under like, and all that, yeah, we won’t get into that. But I mean, it makes no sense for a company to continue to, you know, pay for recruitment services for them to make a miss hire, you know, so that’s something that I really tried to address with the client, and I want to assess the candidates that I provide for culture. And the way that I do that is learning the culture of the client. And I take the time, and I want to do that, because at the end of the day, you know, I promise you, you’re gonna be a lot happier, give you somebody that, you know, this is your person, this is your person, you know, and that’s that person is going to be there for the long haul. And they’re going to come in, and they’ve got proven examples of where they have offered this leadership previously. They can tell me exactly, you know, what strategies they use for team building, or culture improvement, or whatever, you know, and that’s really the kind of the rock star that I want to offer to to my company. So I hate I hate that. And it doesn’t, but I’m telling you how it is. It’s not always the right fit.

Damon Pistulka 31:30
I mean, you can have, you can have stellar credentials, experience, all this kind of stuff. And you get down to the culture. If that doesn’t fit. It’s doesn’t work.

Ann Wyatt 31:40
Yeah, yeah. And you need to, you need to totally ask your candidate to. And that’s another thing. So like, that’s something that the recruiter trainers, they’re like, you know, you it’s your job to make it happen.

Damon Pistulka 31:50
Yeah, get through, get it through.

Ann Wyatt 31:53
Like, it’s my job to make sure that the everybody’s happy is what my job is. So you know, that’s something you need to ask the candidate, how do you feel? I’m always asking about the butterflies. Do you have the feel good? Do you have butterflies? You know, does this feel like something that, you know, you could see yourself doing for the long term? And if they’re like, you know, if they’re kind of hesitant, I’m like, Yeah, we’re good. Yeah. I mean, we’re good. You’re doing now? Yeah.

Curt Anderson 32:22
And that’s the thing as a recruiter and you know, you’re kind of playing matchmaker, you know, that’s why we don’t like setting up our friends on dates, because it doesn’t Yeah, well, you know, but that’s no, you know, when you set up that date, if you will, and it’s a long, it’s a long term, that’s why, you know, take a look, let’s backtrack on a second here, guys. First off, connect with an on LinkedIn here and just look at, you know, fresh out of college, five years out of college, she, she, you know, man, you very easily could have taken that federal government route, you know, that safe paycheck, I salute you, I applaud you to take that leap of faith, that courage to jump into entrepreneurship in 2015. And why is an been so successful for seven years, oh, my goodness, seven years, you’ve had your recruiting firm and white recruiting. And you’ve done that, because you do things with integrity, you take the time to understand the culture of your client, you understand what the needs, and the goals and the skill set of your of the work, you know, the worker themselves. And I think that’s a true testament to how you handle yourself. And let’s tie it in. So now you’re in Alabama, you’re in the Huntsville area, which is just exploding with manufacturing, you have a lot of defense, NASA, I believe is in your neck of the woods. That’s what’s going on. Talk a little bit about the industries that you’re servicing, and who is really? Who’s Who’s, who’s listening to the song that you’re singing, if you will, how’s that?

Ann Wyatt 33:42
Ah, yeah, so, um, I actually still work with a lot of clients in in Bowling Green, and I work on kind of a national scale, but I’ll tell you, the monster plants that they just built up the road is really exploding. And I’m really interested in kind of seeing what they what they do, they’re not really my, my client base, but some of the ideas that they’re kind of doing for their workforce, such as, like the, their, their offer offering daycare, which I thought was, yeah, super innovative. I think I did a workforce Wednesday post about that some time ago. But yeah, the whole, you know, daycare option and finding a way to do that, even if it’s, you know, partnering with another, think they’re partnering with another company on that. That is super progressive to me, because a lot of their workforce, I feel like is going to require, you know, some sort of childcare service and I thought that was just really unique. So that’s definitely going to get to help them with their recruiting needs and also just their existence that point being there. We are sure to see more suppliers to that point coming regionally as well. So I think that’s really going to blow up in the next next couple of years for sure. Cool.

Curt Anderson 35:06
That’s super exciting. So let’s I know you’re super busy. We’re coming into time. And as we wind down, so we covered a lot. So we talked about the future. Super exciting there. We talked about women in manufacturing, man, and I love what you’re just talking about the daycare, and let’s so let’s put on this, and what advice do you have for manufacturers out there as far as trying to instill a better culture of diversity? And, you know, speaking to women in manufacturing, if you were CEO of a large manufacturer, what are some steps that you would take to help diversify our manufacturers?

Ann Wyatt 35:41
So I really think, you know, making a focusing on culture is huge. I think that’s still kind of a struggle for some companies, some more than others, but just giving them you know, improving the workforce culture probably needs to be step one, and just kind of assessing putting in ways to assess the culture over time, either matrixes, or like some sort of, you know, even if it’s like feedback, some way to collect feedback, whatever works for your organization, and then also related to increasing like your recruitment strategies for that targeted group. And that’s something that you really need to kind of take that mentality of meet people where they are. Yes, yeah. Right. So, you know, if you are, if you’re going to develop a recruitment strategy, and you want to make that on diversity, then that needs to be your target, you know, and then get involved in organizations, local organizations, I mean, the Boys and Girls Club, they do. Amazing, thanks. Right. Yeah. And just other, you know, whatever your community has, that, you know, that could be of that audience and just meet people where they are get involved, be a mentor.

Curt Anderson 37:06
Yeah. That is awesome. And I know and you volunteer for the Boys and Girls Club, I believe, correct?

Ann Wyatt 37:11
Yeah. Well, our Sherm group in Franklin, they had this we’d kind of did this thing called the Bridge Academy. Yeah. And it was like a six week course, where one of us volunteered each week from our Sherm group to go in and teach the kids at the Boys and Girls Academy High school kids skill sets. So like mine was obviously on branding and like, like I was the one talking about now I know you love your tattoos, I love my tattoos, you know, whatever. Get out by going over all the Braining stuff for for you know, make sure you’re not on Facebook getting in? Yeah, let’s not do that. But, you know, that was that was 10 years ago, too. But, you know, we would talk about that, but then other HR people in my group, they had some awesome sessions on one word about the manufacturing process by putting together an assembly line where they made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It was pretty cool. Another one taught banking, like, like, like, what, like what investment look like, like 401 K’s, right, all of that good stuff that my generations like, why didn’t you teach us that? Yeah, right now,

Curt Anderson 38:35
right. Yeah, a lot of good stuff. And so let’s let’s wind down on this. Now. Number one, I think you agree. All the cool kids are going into manufacturing? Are they not? And that’s that’s the word industry. Yes. Right. So they are all the cool kids are going into manufacturing. So guys, let’s wind down at this end. Now folks can obviously connect with you here on LinkedIn. You also are co founder of the industry 4.0 club, I believe. Is that correct? Do you have a little club little party that?

Ann Wyatt 39:03
Yeah, we do. Yeah. So the industry 4.0 club started on clubhouse and we are slowly transitioning over to LinkedIn where we’re doing LinkedIn lives and things like that. Yeah, Mondays, women in manufacturing, which is taking place right now. Yeah. Grace Donovan does that. Yeah, like right now. So when you leave here, go to women in manufacturing

Curt Anderson 39:28
and who does? Who’s putting that on? Grace? Donovan? Grace. Okay. Connect with Grace Donovan. Okay. Yeah.

Ann Wyatt 39:35
And then Tuesday’s manufacturing feature with Yun Pingel and Irish sharp, who are both really cool. I mean, there’s just like, so there’s they’re always teaching me things and I’m like, and then Wednesday is usually Fireside Chat with either Mike Yoast or Mike Unger. And then Thursdays we do the we do like people will process culture and that’s myself and yen Pingel. Usually, Yep.

Curt Anderson 40:04
Awesome. Awesome. I think Megan has a show on Friday. So, guys, yes, lots of information and anywhere else that we can find you and your website, you want to mention your website.

Ann Wyatt 40:14
Yeah, my website is and white recruiting.com. And you can learn all about kind of my services for clients, candidates. And then also I have a really cool, like, candidate resource library with templates and stuff. Nice. You want them? Yeah.

Curt Anderson 40:33
Awesome. All sorts of information, man. And you are such an inspiration, what you’ve accomplished at such a young age. It’s just off the charts to follow your career. And I don’t know maybe, maybe Damon, maybe presidents I don’t know. We’ll see. You know, I that’s why she got out of Federal, State as an entrepreneur so and we wish you just monster massive success, who are blessing? Phoenix is one lucky dude to have such a wonderful mom. And so guys, we want you to go out there just absolutely. And we’d bring on Rockstar people. I do not know how we’re so blessed. And we just get a lot. I mean, we’re just lucky are so lucky. This Friday, man is in New here like oh, you know, does he made like the History Channel out there. There’s a show in the History Channel called the machines that built America. Oh, yeah. So good mood that built America. We have one of the commentators from that show. Dr. Hugh Heroux. Williams. He is a demon. I don’t know if I told you this. He was a historian at the Jackie Robinson museum. I saw that Jackie Robinson foundation. It was just Jackie Robinson day on Friday. Yeah, he is everywhere. If you Google Dr. Williams, he is a professor and notable scholar and professor from University of St. Thomas and St. Paul, Minnesota. So Mr. Dr. Williams on Friday, so And thank you thank you thank you for joining us this week guys catch Damon on faces a business on Tuesdays and Thursdays six o’clock Eastern time three o’clock Pacific and and God bless you my friend. Thank you for joining us hang out with us one second. In guys go out there manufacturing Monday motivation is wrapping up. Join us for manufacturing ecommerce success on Friday and have an awesome day. Thank you. Thanks, guys. There we go