Marketing & the “P” In MEP – Partnership

Damon Pistulka  00:01

Hey, all right, it’s Friday, and you know what time that is. It’s time for us here to go live from B to B tail, and we’re going to be putting talking about marketing and putting the P in MEP which is partnership with Erin Read. I am one of the co host today, Damon Pistulka, that gentleman, pretty gentleman. I just want to say right over there, Curt Anderson is a co host. We’re going to be talking today and having a good time, but Curt is going to take it away, my friend. Let’s get going. Hey, thanks, Damon.

Curt Anderson  00:34

I appreciate it. So hey, we’re our you know, our thing is we’re changing, Damon, we’re going to stop being the best kept secret. So we’re and I’ll tell you, this is no our friend here. Is no secret in the MEP network whatsoever. So Erin Read, how are you? It’s been way, way overdue. Thank you for joining us. How are you today?

Erin Read  00:53

Thank you both for the chance to come and chat with you guys. Every time I watch one of these live streams, I think, gosh, they’re just having such a good party with their guest. I want to be part of that too. So this is a good time.

Curt Anderson  01:03

Well, good time. Welcome. Thank you for joining us. And it’s happy Valentine’s Day. Hey, Diane Byers, in the house here today. Damon, So Diane at May, alright,

Damon Pistulka  01:12

Happy Friday. Happy Valentine’s Day. Awesome to see you here today. Diane, and she’s

Curt Anderson  01:17

so she’s probably in Philadelphia, and David, you know what they’re doing today in Philadelphia. Oh, It’s pandemonium. It’s just a little bit of a parade, just a little parade going on. And so Amy on our team, so Danny, I have pictures I’ll share with you. Our friend Amy on our team, is at the parade today. Eagle fans, green everywhere. So congratulations to our friends in Philadelphia

Damon Pistulka  01:38

today, that is you’re here. Congrats. Such a special time. Such a

Curt Anderson  01:43

special time. So alright, Erin, we have a ton to unpack. You are the marketing communications extraordinaire of Polaris MEP, the Rhode Island MEP, I might add. And so we’ve got a we’ve got a ton to uncover, ton to unpack. But before we go there, Miss Read, Miss Read, I have a question for you. Are you sitting down? Are you ready for your first question of the day? Ready?

Erin Read  02:04

Yeah, go for it.

Curt Anderson  02:08

Erin, when you were a little girl growing up, little girl growing up, just a few years ago, when you were a little girl growing up, who was your hero? Who did you look up to? Who did you admire? Who just showered you with unconditional love? Who was your hero when you’re a little girl growing up?

Erin Read  02:23

Oh, what a great question. You know, I was so lucky. I think both my parents were my heroes. Had a really, really charmed childhood. My dad had gotten overseas with the Marines so he could pay for his undergraduate education at the University of Rhode Island, and he was this poor kid from Quincy mass, and then he discovered that he could speak Spanish like a native, and also he didn’t want to live in the United States, so he my mom got married, and they just didn’t live in the United States. They worked for businesses around the world. So I had this incredible set of heroes who always were just embracing life and travel and and educating us and inspiring us and making contacts and friends everywhere. My father, I mean, my dad was pretty darn cool. I got to tell you, in his lifetime, he ran with a bull 17 times. He took a one man play to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And my mom taught English to people all around the world, which is why, and I feel like we do have to make some apologies. I don’t speak like a Rhode Islander, but if you had ever heard somebody from Rhode Island speak, they have a bit of an accent. That’s like the bastard child between New Jersey and Boston. So my mom was a teacher in schools, and she taught English and all the rest. So I just imagine that out there that sons of the Angolan Ambassador are saying 123, FOA, you know, it’s Yeah, so super. They’re wonderful heroes to have. Just love them both. So really lucky.

Curt Anderson  03:55

Alright, that’s so, that’s hysterical. So Dave, my sister, I have a sister, I have a sister that was right on the border of Connecticut and Rhode Island, so I totally that that joke told, I can’t wait to pass that one to her. And she used to, she lived in Jersey for 30 years. So I Oh, yeah. So she, I totally, I totally, yeah. So Erin, mom and dad’s name, please. What are mom and dad’s names? Please pass

Erin Read  04:18

those. My dad’s name was Mark. My mom’s name is Patricia Patsy, as we all called her, and they’re just, you know, good peeps out there, and Lucky, lucky, lucky. So that’s awesome.

Damon Pistulka  04:28

Go ahead, David, well, I just have to say, you said your father ran with a bull 17 times, yeah. How many times did he emerge with no injuries?

Erin Read  04:41

17? Oh,

Damon Pistulka  04:42

my goodness, I look at that and I’m like, That would be cool. But, you know, growing up on a farm, I had to do it before in real life, and that’s no fun.

Erin Read  04:51

Like, who volunteers for this stuff? Yeah, my dad did. He was, he was a, really, it was just a great joy for him. You know, he had. Learned about all of that when he’d first gotten over there as a young man, and he made exceptional friends and and those friends continued to be our friends our whole life. So it was really

Curt Anderson  05:08

lovely. That’s it. That’s awesome. And so And Mark, if I caught you, said was in the Marine, so served our country, proudly, lived all over the world. Any particular favorite country? Erin, I know for you your family, what was one of your favorite

Erin Read  05:21

questions? Well, I think probably my parents would say something else. But, you know, I ended up moving back to the United States, or I should say to the United States when I was close to 13, and the last place we lived was there for my favorite because I was the most able to take advantage of it and remember it and be myself, right? And that was Portugal. Have either of you visited Portugal yet? Yeah, Damon’s nodding, right? I

Curt Anderson  05:43

have not been Curt. Go in Portugal. Move it up

Erin Read  05:47

on your to do list, right? Damon, where’d you travel in Portugal? Where’d you visit? I

Damon Pistulka  05:51

don’t even remember it was like 20 years ago, but I was there for three weeks in, oh, my Portugal and Spain and Italy, and,

Erin Read  05:59

yeah, it’s lovely, you know? It’s, it’s a great, great. It’s, there’s some similarities to Rhode Island, right? It’s this little sliver surrounded by other larger things, right? Actually, in Rhode Island, we have a huge amount of a Portuguese population, so the food is so good, you could not get better than Portuguese food. And it’s a beautiful country. It’s got such history. I mean, you’re literally walking around. You’re like, Oh, look at that viaduct that was built before Julius Caesar. Yes, it’s still working today, you know. So it’s got all this rich history, and it’s a very vibrant, multicultural place and and like I said, you can’t go wrong with food and fun and incredibly nice people, the nicest in Europe. So I’d go back there in a heartbeat. So if, if anybody’s listening, from Portugal,

Curt Anderson  06:45

we, we had a guest not too long ago who’s an expat who he and his family moved from Ohio to Portugal about 13 years ago and never left. And so phenomenal, great to share there. Aaron. So alright, let’s dive in. If you’re just joining us, we’re here with Erin Read from the Polaris MEP, that is the Rhode Island MEP, if you’re not familiar with the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, MEP, that we’re talking about, we’re going to dive into that for one in one second, Aaron, before we dive into like, your passion and how you just work relentlessly, helping wonderful manufacturers in the great state of Rhode Island. I’m going to take one step further. So Mark and Patricia, your your heroes, you lived all over the place. Come back to Rhode Island. You are a graduate of Colgate University, wonderful, amazing, incredible university. You found yourself in journalism, sports, if I’m not mistaken, let’s go through, I want to go through like, kind of like college days. And like, let’s lead up to like, how did you find bringing your superpowers, your talents, your skills, into the world of manufacturing. But let’s go back to what was going into college there. Yeah,

Erin Read  07:45

you know, so going to college was great. I loved COVID University. It’s a small school, liberal arts school, which we need those, which really its job was to teach you how to think and how to be thoughtful and creative and connect with other humans, which I think is a really great thing, and that’s hopefully what I get to do in this job as well. But you know, when I was there, we had maybe 2400 students. So, you know, you you’d go into a room, and you would meet somebody, you’d go into a room, and you knew a few people, which was lovely, and the best thing ever happened to me as I first arrived, which was I tried out for the volleyball team, and I did not make it. And I should not have made it. I was fine in little, teeny, tiny town in Rhode Island that we’d moved back to my mom’s hometown, but certainly not good enough for college volleyball. But as a result, the coach for the team asked me if I would be the manager for the team, and because I was the manager for the team, the newspaper asked me if I would report on the team, because I was already there, so why not? And that got me involved in the newspaper, The Colgate news. And so by the time I graduated, I thought I was going to be a journalist. I’d been Editor in Chief. I’ve done all this stuff, etc. So I get out, it’s 1992 and let me paint a picture of the world in a recession. And I come out of a liberal arts college from upstate New York with my Spanish and International Relations double major, and I want to go into journalism. And we’ll say that there weren’t a heck of a lot of opportunities, which was great. And it turns out that the thing that I had really learned from Colgate that was valuable was an incredible technical skill, not those soft skills, but a technical skill, I could type like 93 words a minute with perfect accuracy, because regularly, student reporters did not put their things in in time. So I’d be at 3am banging out a story right? So I go and I sign up as a temporary secretary for one day. I’m supposed to be at this international organization, and I left six months later having worked in several of the departments, including substituting for their PR coordinator while she was on maternity live. And that said to me, don’t be a journalist if you want to tell stories, if you want to learn about things that help other people feel, things that act on that information. To be a PR person, be a marketing and communications person. So that’s where I ended up. That

Curt Anderson  10:05

is a phenomenal story. Gosh, one day turn into six months. Yes,

Erin Read  10:11

I’m like a barnacle. I hold on you.

Curt Anderson  10:15

So alright, so Erin, so let’s go here. So you are now with the Polaris MEP, for in our friends, family, folks out there that listening, and they’re like, what’s you keep seeing this MEP. And I kind of see underneath Aaron there, that player, what is MEP? Could you please explain to folks who and what is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership? And how are you guys just making the world a better place?

Erin Read  10:38

Aren’t you fabulous? So you know, we are Rhode Island’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership Center. And what’s great, if that means that we’re part of a network of MEPs, one center in each one of the states with Puerto Rico and all of us have the same absolute mission, and that is, how do we make manufacturers in our state stronger, more competitive? How do we help them not only sleep at night, but reach the dreams they had the night before. Right? That’s where we’re supposed to be, and we’re supposed to be able to thrive. And so I joined Polaris MEP about three weeks before the pandemic hit in 2020 I came over as a consultant after a long career, right, in marketing, and I was supposed to be running like events, in person events. I canceled them all, and it turned out that some of my other skills were helpful. But it was really funny, because when I first Googled, you know, because we live in Google’s world, right, Googled Polaris semipa, and I’m like, This is really weird. Why is a company that makes snowmobiles and those horrible slingshot machines in Rhode Island as a nonprofit helping manufacturers? And it turns out we have nothing to do with those people. What we do is we’re like a North Star, Polaris the North Star, right? And we guide manufacturers to the solutions that they need. And we do that through the power of this extraordinary MEP national network. And that means 51 centers, 1400 plus experts, right? And then all the connections they have, so that when a client comes to us with a problem and says, I’m not sure how to get to this. We can say we’re here to help. And that’s a really incredible gift, right, to have that position.

Curt Anderson  12:09

Absolutely alright. Absolutely love that. Damon,

Damon Pistulka  12:11

what do you got that is one of the things I really enjoy about the MEPS is, is you could if I was at the MEP today and someone came to me and talked to me, and it was something I had no idea how to help, how to solve. All I have to do is go out to the network and go, who knows something about this? And you will find somebody. It’s amazing. It’s amazing. Yes, it really is. MEP network, it

Erin Read  12:35

And that’s the E in MEP, right? So it’s manufacturing. All we do is manufacturing. There’s so many companies are out there and so many people who are out there who are manufacturers, and they don’t even realize it, right? So, you know, we talk frequently to people right now, I’m running a farm business accelerator, and you might think a farm business is a manufacturer. Well, they are, if they’re taking what they grow on the farm, adding value to it, and shipping it off the farm so that it can benefit other people, right? So that’s the manufacturing part of it, and the extension Damon, you hit it on the head, right? We have an extraordinary between Polaris MEP and our sister center 401, tech Bridge, which foreign tech bridge really focuses on the commercialization of technologies that are useful to the Navy, basically blue economy in that area. But between those, we’ve got about 29 people in our staff, and that includes some extraordinary manufacturing advisors who have hundreds of years all totaled up of experience, right? But if we can extend that reach through the mepnn, that’s that’s extraordinary, of course, partnership, which you know is, is a, we partner internally, partner externally? It’s a, it’s pretty, pretty good gig here that we’ve got at the MEP, so

Curt Anderson  13:46

absolutely love it. So all right, let’s, let’s go here. Erin, a couple questions to dive into. Polaris I want to dive into your the menu, all the extraordinary things that you guys offer. So if manufacturers out there that, like, Man, I’m not familiar with this MEP, like I could use some help here. 1400 people strong, all sorts of expertise, experience. You just mentioned, hundreds of years of experience on your team alone. What are some of the things on your menu, some of the solutions that you provide to help your manufacturers? Great

Erin Read  14:15

way to put it, totally, shamelessly stealing a phrase that Kathie Mahoney, who is the center director over at the Mass MEP, right? She’s the president of the Mass MEP, she always says it’s top line, bottom line, and pipeline. And I love that description, right? We can help with your top line, your bottom line, your pipeline. We don’t want a manufacturer to say, Gosh, how can somebody Six Sigma, my quality department? We don’t what we want them to say is, hey, I’ve got a top line goal. How do I reach that? Right? So in Rhode Island, for example, birthplace of manufacturing in the United States, right? It’s where the Slater mill was. Textiles started here. It’s great. We still have a very strong textiles network, but it’s not the textiles of old. It’s really innovative textiles. I mean, this. Stuff is so cool, right? So textile innovator comes to us, right? And they have invented this new way to be able to do textiles, where they take things that are fibers that are smaller than one hair on my head, and they weave it into fabric. So we could turn, for example, a uniform that one of our war fighters is wearing into a computer right here, it’s a circuit board. It’s exceptional, right? So they’ve got this great idea, but where do they go? Top line growth, how do they do it, right? So they worked with our team, but they also worked with our 401 tech bridge team, because we were able to extend what they had, extend their reach, make some connections to them, right? For partners. Help them apply for SBIR and STTR grants, get them the collaborators that they needed to kind of get this going through. And we gave them then operational training so that we could improve, so they could get it out there, right? This is all top line growth, right? So that’s a pretty exciting way that we can kind of kind of help somebody with their top line growth. Great. So, bottom line, top line, bottom line, pipeline. Bottom line, right? Bottom line, everybody needs to cut costs. That’s always the way they’re thinking, right? But it’s also like, how do you identify where you can cut the cost without sacrificing quality, customer service, productivity, right? So we had a coffee manufacturer. Love coffee manufacturers. They’re just the greatest people, right? Yes, coffee is manufacturing, roasting, packaging, right? That’s manufacturing, right? So they came to us, and we worked with them on lean manufacturing training, right, those very smart concepts, and then also did some facility layout. Once they gotten lean, they realized, hey, this, this isn’t physically set up for us to be the most efficient possible, right? So one little thing that’s cool about MEPs, right? We are measured. We get this incredible support through the National Institute of Standards and Technology flowing down into the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership, right? And since NIST has standards in their name, they want to make sure we’re up to standards, right? So you guys know this. They go about six to 12 months after we finish a project, and they say, did players MEP do what they said that they were supposed to do? So they asked this coffee manufacturer, did players MEP do what they said? And he reported back that they had saved $1.5 million Wow. Now they’re a company of 30 employees.

Curt Anderson  17:20

I’m sorry, Erin, I’m a little older. I don’t hear as well anymore. Can you repeat I didn’t Damon, did you hear what she’s I

Damon Pistulka  17:27

didn’t hear what she said? Not quite I missed some

Erin Read  17:30

of it. So this incredible coffee manufacturer, and the case study, of course, is on our website, reported $1.5 million in direct savings through what they were able to do by working on their bottom line, operational efficiency, continuous improvement, lean manufacturing, the facility layout, which wasn’t a huge thing, they didn’t add anything, right? They’re not adding square footage. They’re reclaiming square footage. They’re using it better, right? $1.5 million worth of savings, that’s a heck of a bottom line improvement, right? Yes, I think we could all use that, which is pretty cool, right? This is why I love my job. I just could tell the stories of how amazing our team is, and what they do that’s something that’ll help you sleep better at night. Is if you save, looking back, $1.5 million and believe me, they did not invest $1.5 million in that training. They invested the time and commitment, and we got to invest our experts, which was great. All right, so that leaves pipeline. You got to speak to the wonderful Aryn Clemens, our Senior workforce manager. He came and talked to you guys a while ago. And so our workforce team is amazing, because we really look at kind of that pipeline, starting from the very like K through 12, things like Manufacturing Day outreach to schools. We have this incredible workforce coordinator, Supriya. She goes each week, and she sits at the Providence Public Library on a day when they have all of these different team groups in and she just answers questions and she passes out materials, and she makes things happen, which is really good. She’s also working with our textile Innovation Network on a young professionals thing. So again, K through 12, and also University. We have Aaron, who really is extraordinary, and he works on training programs and fair chance and second chance and incredible things. And then we have, if you’ve not gotten a chance, to meet the amazing Lindsay Brickle, who is our Director of Workforce and community partnerships, that woman is changing the world, hourly, hourly, I’ll tell you guys a story later when we talk about partnerships, about what she was able to achieve, but she is extraordinary, right? So that’s all of these things, no matter what we say to our manufacturers. What do you need so that you can succeed on your top line, your bottom line, your pipeline, and then we help them get there. That’s it. That’s what we at the MEP, do?

Curt Anderson  19:52

David, drop the mic. Man, drop the mic as matter of fact. Let’s Hey Diane byerson,

Damon Pistulka  19:57

Diane dropped the comment. Andrew says, do. Top line, bottom line, pipeline. And then she said, NIST, that’s the National Institute of Standards and Technology, you know it. Let’s go the MEPs. Thank you. Thank you. Let’s

Curt Anderson  20:11

take a yeah, my screen. So I so again, any manufacturers out there? Erin, like this is, this is, like gold right here. So your energy is just so contagious. This is so awesome. So what we encourage you to do, if you’re a manufacturer out there and you have not engaged with the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, that is your local MEP, this is the state. This is the map right here. There’s an MEP, as Erin’s describing you, like the story, $1.5 million not invested saved by just more organization efficiency. Just that is priceless, absolutely priceless. And as we’re striving to make our country more competitive from a manufacturing standpoint. So here’s the map. If you go to the n i s t National Institute standard technology, NIST MEP website, you will see this map, and you will see the MEP near you. So, Aaron, I’ll stop sharing on that. So that was, man, I don’t know that was like, an incredible description. I’m

Erin Read  21:12

not so sure about that, but this is what, this is why, like when you get, you know, cut from something, and you have one day that you’re supposed to go there. It’s just amazing when you realize that, honestly, like, just spreading word is really an important thing. Yes, spreading word is a, really an important thing. So absolutely.

Curt Anderson  21:30

And three, you started three weeks before COVID. How about that? Look at the look at what you’ve done. And can you believe it’s almost five it’s gonna be five years? Like, what gonna

Erin Read  21:38

be five years? Yeah, yeah. But you know what? Again, it’s not, it’s not what I’ve done. What I’ve done is just been able to learn about, hear about, and then talk about what we have done and what we can do for people. And again, I give shout outs. We’ve got the incredible NIST MEP national network. We were joking earlier, right about our tea, right? So this is my my mug for today. If people can read this, I don’t know, Diane and Craig, can you hear it says, maybe today, Satan, I love a little tea. I love a little tea with fun, right? But the MEP national network has done a tremendous job. They got a great team, and out there, they’ve started like a new series called the T with MEP, and they’re taking some of these complex things I’m breaking them down, right? And I appreciate that, because that’s what we all try to do. And so to have that kind of air cover of marketing messaging sitting there and saying, Okay, why? Why do I want supplier scouting? Why do I want this? Why do I want that? How is it going to help me? Top line, bottom line, pipeline, it’s great.

Curt Anderson  22:38

Gosh, man, Mark and Patricia did a pretty good job, don’t you think? Yeah, he did a pretty good job. Alright, we have, we still have a lot to cover. Erin, you mentioned agriculture. You mentioned textile. So for folks that maybe Damon’s on the other side of the country, people that are not familiar with what’s going on in Rhode Island, they’re like, Well, it’s a small state, probably not big on manufacturing, but it is big on manufacturing. Please dispel that myth and just share. You mentioned textiles, you mentioned agriculture. What are some of the other really exciting, cool things that are being manufactured in Rhode

Speaker 1  23:09

Island? Yeah, what a great, great tea up there. I appreciate that. So you know, what’s funny is that when you look across the MEP national network, right? We sit there and some states have just kind of traditional strengths in certain industries, right? You can’t think of Michigan without thinking automotive, et cetera, et cetera. Rhode Island, for being such a small state, has about 1500 active manufacturers. Now, I gotta put a caveat on that, because that’s 1500 manufacturers. That’s fewer than probably in Cook County, Illinois. I get it, I get it right. But within those 1500 we have literally every single possible NAICS code that you could have for manufacturing. So that means, in our state and among our clients, which is really lovely, we have an amazing woman who makes kimchi. We have somebody who created the batteries that are currently in the Mars Rovers. Awesome. You could not get wider stretches of things, but they’re all manufacturing, and they’re all innovative and working hard, right? We do have some clusters. We’re an ocean state, right? So surrounded by blue, that means blue related manufacturing is very strong. Many of our manufacturers are metals and machine shops that are part of the really vital supply chain for building submarines, for building naval defense. That’s a really important thing. Even some of our textile innovators are doing things that actually are part of the Defense Supply Chain as well. Remember, I told you he’s turning it into a computer. It’s just so cool to say, right? So we have those. We also have a traditionally thing. I mean, I don’t know, are you guys old movie fans at all?

Curt Anderson  24:46

Oh, yeah. Well, we’re old, but so

Speaker 1  24:50

that was classic. I’m seasoned as well. So have you ever seen the movie high society? I have high society, right? It’s based at the Newport Jazz Festival. And off they go, in the boat, the true love. Why is that? Because we’re surrounded by water. We got boats here in Rhode Island, right? So ship building, and even more importantly, out of that, composites, very the first advanced materials, right? Were composites, very innovative, very forward, kind of future forward on that, that’s a big thing. Textiles, strong only maybe 75 companies, but they’re incredible. What they’re doing everything from your lanyard to, like I said, like there’s a group called Cooley group here. They have out in the desert in the Middle East, with their textiles, created something that’s like a geo membrane, or something I can never, kind of get all the tech right, but literally, it’s a giant, multiple football fields wide thing that stores water in the desert with no evaporation and no condensation and no loss in the desert. They’re storing water with a textile made in Rhode Island. That’s cool, right? Like, some pretty cool stuff there, we do have an amazing food system, right? So among food processors, we punch above our weight. I think it’s not just because we love food here, and I’m not single handedly, the one or single stomach, the one who’s responsible for their success, but rather, we have this incredible university here called Johnson and Wales University which trains chefs, etc. They come here, they learn they don’t want to leave Rhode Island. It’s a great state. So they start food businesses. But more importantly, we have this incredible, incredible systems food business accelerator. It’s called Hope and Maine. And hope in Maine is extraordinary. They take what they call food preneurs, and they help them take their ideas from concept to fledging business, and from fledging business to a second stage or higher business. So it’s really an incredible little cluster of companies. But yeah, those are some of the folks we have in Rhode Island. I’m sure that there are people who are going to be upset with me because I miss their area. But we get some life sciences that are going on, and a lot of blue tech that crosses over all of those kind of little areas. So it’s really nifty. Oh

Curt Anderson  27:00

gosh, I’d say there’s a lot of cutting edge things going on in Rhode Island. This is, this is phenomenal. Damon. Diane’s got a couple of comments here for us. Yeah, yeah.

Damon Pistulka  27:09

She said, USA manufacturing is so important. There are so many wonderful people working in the background to support them every day. And she said, thanks for being one of them. And then build submarines.com.

Erin Read  27:21

Yeah, so Diane knows it, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a great, great group. And you know, we have two partners here in Rhode Island who are very active in that, and that’s sunidia. And also, you took, and they’re doing some really cool stuff there. Yeah, we’ve got a lot of folks who are inventing and everything else and going like, especially underwater unmanned vehicles, that’s the next area, and they’re being built here in Rhode Island and invented here in Rhode Island, very,

Curt Anderson  27:49

oh, it’s just, it’s just so awesome being on the forefront of all these exciting things, isn’t it? And

Damon Pistulka  27:55

you know, the the geography lends itself to a perfect testing ground, right? You’ve got a lot of in interior water that’s, that’s still, it’s ocean, but it’s interior, where you can test this stuff in secure environment and and just, yeah, just so good for that. And

Erin Read  28:14

we’ve got a lot of smart partners here in the state and in the region who make that possible, right, and who are seeing the future of the blue economy and what we can do with it, and also all the companies in the slide supply chain like, because it’s really cool, right? I mean, it’s super cool that Jaya Robotics has invented these little underwater they kind of form as clusters robots. They’re so cool the giant bots, right? Very, very cool. But also they also need, like, the wires and the pins and the screws and the everything else to go into them, and we’ve got those as well, right? But between the state of Rhode Island, right, really committing to it, that’s a huge partner. And then you look and you see, like we have, you know, the tech bridges, people are working together to make that happen. And that’s what makes a success. You can’t create, support, launch, grow an industry by yourself. No matter how good we are,

Curt Anderson  29:02

it takes a village, right? And so that, hey, there’s a perfect tee up. We’re going to dive into some of your partnerships. How about that? We ready? So again, we’re coming. Hey, we’re top of the hour. If you’re just joining us, we’re here with Erin Read from the Polaris MEP, that is the Rhode Island MEP, strongly encouraged to invite you, welcome you. Connect with Erin on LinkedIn. She is just a phenomenon, great friend. She’s a woman of high integrity, super passionate about manufacturing here in the United States. And So Erin, let’s dive into the I’m going to take a peek at the Polaris website here, and let me share my screen, and we’ll go here. We’ll go here. And okay, you guys see my screen, alright, so let’s dive in. So again, if you want to connect with Erin, you can find her on LinkedIn. You can also find her at her website. Here we’re looking at Erin. So for someone just coming here for the first time, let’s just kind of navigate a little bit. Just talk, walk us through, and then we’re going to talk about the partnerships that you are that you’ve been mentioning. You really lean into that really makes the MEP such a vibrant success. What have you got going on here so far? Yeah. So

Erin Read  30:06

you know, what’s exciting about it is that I love that what you said through the MEP, and with the MEP, that’s a huge part of our value proposition. Every marketer knows that you have to have a value proposition, right? And for Polaris MEP, we don’t build those slingshots. What we do is we build companies using the power of the MEP national network, and that’s a really extraordinary thing to be able to do. And we’re really all about kind of demand driven, and what does the client need? Not what do we want to push on them? So that’s right. It’s always like, find the right solutions to your challenges and get help with what you need, because that’s critical. So if you look across the top, one of the very first things that you see is services, and our services group across improving, growing and also workforce development. Again, that’s basically bottom line, top lane pipeline. I’m very I’m a bear of very simple words here. You know, what is it? Padding to poo, Bear. Bear of simple brain, little brain. That’s me, right? But within that, there’s a lot of different ways that we can skin a cat, right? So somebody could come to us and say, hey, my goal is to grow. And we say, Oh my gosh. Actually, you know what? If you put in a quality management system trained up by our team, identifying the gaps, getting you so that you comply with ISO 9000, 2015 you could actually pursue this growth area, because you weren’t able to even buy for those contracts before you weren’t competitive, right? So lots of different ways to get there. So we do try to get them to it. So, you know, it’s, it’s lots of ways, sometimes the smallest, most incremental changes have the biggest impact in long term, scalability and sustainability, right? Under Programs, you’re going to see that that’s a good example of all the different things that we can kind of do, both around technology, innovation pipelines, etc. It’s a large list, but even if you look at that, you already start to see a bunch of partners kind of listed. So, you know, no matter what, that’s a thread that we put through, kind of going through our our results. We are measured on our results. So there’s a lot of videos there. In fact, remember I mentioned the Hope and Main story? Right? Hope and Main which is this incredible food business accelerator. So we have this marvelous, marvelous project manager. That’s what we call the folks who do our business, advising right. His name is Nathan bonds, and Nathan is passionate about food businesses, and has developed this lovely, lovely partnership with Hope and Main so he actually teaches one of their courses when they have clients first come on about standards and flows, etc. And if you went to our results section, you’d see a case study that’s all about a company called puppy pets and buppy is because it was good enough for a baby to eat, but you’d feed it to your puppy. Bu and puppy pets does dog treats, and they’re amazing. And you know, I loved it because we ended up being able to do through the National MEP national network, doing a video about that kind of three legged stool that help puppy pets be successful. It was Polaris MEP. It was Hope and Main and it was our partner who is the client, because if you’re not partnering with your client, you’re never going to help them get to their goals. So yeah, we’ve got a bunch of things in there as well. So those are kind of the main highlights that we go around lot of lot of different things. We try to really tell that story as much as we can of of how they they got success. Because I’m hopeful, right? That somebody will look at it and go, Oh, I can get that too, right? That that’s a problem I had. I relate

Curt Anderson  33:35

Excellent. Okay, so this, I’m going to come back to you guys, and hopefully I won’t Alright. There we are. I’m always, like, worried. I’m going to, like, close up my like, close up my So, alright, let’s, let’s go over here. So, Erin, I’m going to pull up. So again, go to Polaris MEP website. There’s all sorts of case studies. We mentioned. What’s on the menu. All the services you provide, you can tackle lean. We talk about floor, layout efficiencies. You do marketing services. So again, I love

Erin Read  34:01

cyber security. We do a lot actually, that’s, you know, and it’s, it’s so critical there is nobody who is safe, right? And, you know, especially as we are balancing achieving the efficiencies and the potential of some automation, and especially the potential for taking somebody who has extraordinary skills and talents and having them stop doing the things that a machine could do, so that they can go do the things that only they can do. Right? Yeah, that we want, that we want to make sure that we have that right. But as you do that, you’re connecting more of your machines. You’re exposing yourself to more potential weaknesses. So we do a lot around that area, which is, is really wonderful. We also do a ton of leadership training and leadership training at every level as part of career pathways. Right? You’ve got somebody who, one day, they were on the line with their friends, and the next day. They’re supposed to be supervising their friends. They’ve never been given the skills to do that, right? We can give them the training and the skills to do that. Yes,

Damon Pistulka  35:08

that’s awesome. That’s a huge piece. It’s a huge piece in business, because people are, you know, display their abilities, and then that education piece helps them become better leaders,

Erin Read  35:19

absolutely. And it never stops coaching CEOs, bringing them together in peer groups. That’s also critical. We are always learning if we’re going to be always improving. And that’s at the core of manufacturing. That’s the core of what you guys do at B to B detail in your own business, right? Have to always learn and always improve.

Curt Anderson  35:37

Yeah, so, and you’re mentioning that success story, I’ve got it right here. I wanted to share with everybody. So, so again, what we’re here, we’re talking about partnerships and how critical this is, and so this and this right here, Erin, tee this up. Or, you know, you mentioned it teed up. But I love what you’ve done here is, like you’re highlighting, showcasing you one of your clients. But just what do we what’s going on here? And we’ve got the, this is the puppy pets that you’re talking about, right? It

Erin Read  36:02

It is. So the MEP National Network, which is an incredibly important partner, obviously, of ours, they do this ongoing series called The heroes of manufacturing, and they showcase these videos on the NIST MEP website. And great thing for anybody to have a resource so you can hear the story and see the change, right? So what’s cool about it is it’s like a little bit of a pageant to contest at first, you have to throw all your ideas at the MEP and then and say, Please, pick me. Pick me. I want to, I want to tell this story. Right? So we thought we had a pretty good story, because our story wasn’t just about how Polaris MEP helped a food manufacturing client. Our story was that how Polaris MEP working with somebody who is an extraordinarily important local partner and driver of change in this ecosystem here in Rhode Island and the client. All three of us work together, and so that’s really what it was about. So one of my favorite things about this video is that I got to be there the day they were shooting it, and I got to talk to the puppy pets team. Now, like many food manufacturers, when Lauren got started, her number one employee is, can you guess it? Her dog B, her mom, her mom. I can’t tell you how many moms are not enjoying the retirement the way they thought they were. They’re helping their kids, yeah, leave their respect. It’s so much fun, right? So I’m talking to the mom, and the mom’s telling me, you know, when Nathan first came on board, I hated him. I was like, what? Nobody hates Nathan. Nathan is Nathan is sunshine and goodness and Tigger. I mean, like the man on the weekend has like, 70 something chickens that he grows. I mean, he’s and he’s still painting things for his neighbors, what? And she was like, Oh, he was constantly watching everything I did, and counting all my steps and timing me and telling me to do it. I was giggling so much at this, because she’s right? That’s change, right? Change is hard for people, and to have Nathan like watching you that way, right? He’s doing it out of out of love and out of service, right? To help them be more efficient. She goes and now, oh, if I could have him and his whole family at Thanksgiving every year, I would that is awesome. So I love, I love these side stories that come out of this. This video and this story of puppy pets is from Lauren, the entrepreneurs perspective, but that impact was felt throughout her whole organization. And that’s really marvelous, right?

Curt Anderson  38:34

Just the tough love from Nathan, just, you know, making that, that manufacture, just better, more efficient. Let’s, let’s go here. So I’m going to jump over to this link here. So we’ve got the accelerating the defense manufacturing ecosystem. What’s going on here? Yeah, yeah. So,

Erin Read  38:51

you know how people love acronyms? I’m, I’m sure, oh, I’m sorry I lost. Hang on. I’ll get it there, right? Dana, you know how people love putting acronyms? They create a name for something with perfectly great SEO words, and then they immediately remove them by doing an acronym, right? So this is Rhode Island manufacturing to accelerate the defense ecosystem. R I made, and this is really cool, because it’s an example of how you take a whole bunch of partners to create something better than our pieces and parts, right? So we got this as a grant funded program through the office of local defense community cooperation, that is a section of the DOD, and what they were looking at, what they wanted. And this is a national program. I think it’s something like 14 or 15 people at a time get different programs get kind of pointed for this, right? They wanted a way to make sure that they were really supporting the supply chain, specifically for naval in our area, right? But how do we support the Defense Supply Chain? And so what we came to them with was a program that leveraged that national partner of the oil. DCC, but also leveraged a bunch of our local partners, which was really cool, right? So what happens is, it’s got two phases. A client applies, and if they’re accepted, then we send out to them a team of students, students from two of our academic partners, University of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island College, and we’ve trained these students to be little consultants, to walk the client through a series of assessments and create a report out and a plan. This is free to them. This is 1000s of dollars worth of gap analysis and recommendations that are to that. So what are we doing with this right top line, bottom line pipeline. They’re getting top line, bottom line, recommendations in it. But the pipeline, you now have a team of seven kids who, honest to God, have probably lived next to a manufacturer their whole life, and claim they have no idea that there are manufacturing careers, and now they’re seeing a place for themselves. Yeah, manufacturing careers, they want to work in it, right? It is incredible to see that, and it’s something that we started at first just with the University of Rhode Island students, and the Rhode Island College is like we want in too. So now we’re working Rhode Island colleges. We’ve even got some kids from Community College of Rhode Island we’re looking at it’s so neat. Several of our partner organizations have put some of their manufacturing like their advisors, onto these teams, just so they can see how the process works, so they can learn more about manufacturing, so their organizations can, in turn, better serve manufacturers when they’re working with them. It is so cool. We’re getting great impacts from this. It’s 50 in the second phase, after they’ve gone through that. Very unusually, most grants don’t let you buy equipment, but on this one, you could apply and pay, get about $50,000 total to help do some of the investments that are recommended out of those Wow assessments. It’s really an incredible so definitely, there’s three kind of key areas that it looks at. It’s really risk mitigation, specifically around supply chain. You guys know that’s a really important part right now, cyber security, hey, hey, there’s my old friend, and also robotics and automation. So those are kind of the three Bain areas, but it’s really cool. I love it. I love it. So we made this video. It’s got the stories of both students involved and clients. That’s one of our favorites. Chris Goodwin, I know we’re not supposed to have favorites. They’re all my favorites. Chris Goodwin at Goodwin Bradley. Goodwin Bradley was actually involved in the making of the original like Sikorsky helicopter and earlier things, yeah. And now they’re with our help and working with Polaris MVP, have reinvented the way they’re doing things, and they’re moving forward into the next, the next era of innovation. Really cool stuff.

Curt Anderson  42:42

Super cool. I’ll tell you, this is phenomenal. I mean, like in your covering, like, all the things that you’re checking, you know, you’ve talked cyber, you’ve talked about, you know, getting young folks excited about manufacturing. I mean, like you’re hitting so many, you’re checking off so many things on the list here. This is just phenomenal, yeah,

Damon Pistulka  42:57

and then we’re doing it with partners, yeah, bringing so many different people together in the process, right, that you wouldn’t normally associate like that, right? Well, and let’s always

Erin Read  43:07

have to do that, because we can’t, we don’t have the capacity number one, and we wouldn’t be the best resource. So this is a good example. Thanks for bringing this up, right? Yeah, so if we’re going to be a partner, right? And that’s the P is for partnership, manufacturing, Extension Partnership, right? Primary is a two way street, right? It can’t always be, send us. Send us. Send us your leads. Send us your referrals. Do this for us, right? It really has to be getting to know our partners and what their needs are, and also what their strengths are. What do they bring to the table that other people have not had the opportunity to learn about? Right? So the gentleman you see on the screen here with our fabulous center director, Matt Watson, is on the right, and that’s Oscar Mejia on the left, and Oscar is the executive director of the Rhode Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. So since Oscar founded the Rhode Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, it is so fast growing, and they don’t serve manufacturers. Specifically, they just serve Hispanic owned or LED businesses in Rhode Island. Many of those are actually makers and manufacturers. There are incredible folks out there who are making food stuffs, who are making jewelry, especially jewelry. Oh, I need to leave my credit card at home every time I go to one of these events. But all of these things, it’s also a potential source of people for our pipeline, bringing folks into skilled jobs, high paying, well paying jobs here in our manufacturing. So those are two of the things that we wanted out of it, right? Was leads for our projects and also leads for our training programs and our jobs. But what did he want out of it? What could he get right? So early on, we really talked with us Scott, and we said, Okay, what is it you need? And he goes, number one, show up. Honest to God, to show up. Kind of partnering is show up, show up, and then amplify, right? So that is a great way. And then listen. So maybe a year ago, I’m standing at, you know, a Latina women in business thing, and I’m listening to us got and Oscar is talking about how they really want to have an extra emphasis on making government contracting more accessible to their membership this current year. And so afterwards, I’m chit chatting with him, standing with our local SBA guy, who’s a dear friend, and the two of us both go, oh, Scott, what’s going to what’s going to help you do that? And he goes, Well, I need a closer relationship with this, that and the other so that’s what I did. Went back, fired off a bunch of emails for our other partners and said, What’s going to use a closer relationship? I’m going to create a meeting. It’s the three of us. I’m not going to say anything, but you’re going to get to know our good friend. How does that benefit our manufacturers? Well, any manufacturer knows, if you’re at the higher end of the food chain for the build America, Buy America and other things, you want a greater diversity of who can provide you with what, where it’s coming from, keeping it local, reducing your total cost of ownership. You might not have realized there was somebody here in Rhode Island who could do that for you. Right? So our manufacturers are benefiting always from what they get, and Oscar and his team are benefiting as well, because they’re able to provide a service and have more doors opened than hopefully they were before. We’re going to keep opening those doors for whoever we can, because partnering is a two way street. That’s that’s the best thing, plus they are the best fun events to go to. That’s awesome. That is great food, great fun, yeah, and

Curt Anderson  46:38

a great transition. So I love the theme, if and again, you know, Erin, the thing here, it’s not just like you, you at the MEP, or just, you know, as economic developers, it’s all about just building relationships, right? It’s just all about just, you know, all in it together. I’m teeing up this page for you, so we’re kind of showing different examples. But what do you again, we’re on your website, and you’re giving a shout out to your this vibrant referral partner, you know, strategic partnership network that you have, what’s going on here on this page. So,

Erin Read  47:10

you know, it’s, it’s a wonderful thing, because these are just kind of a highlight of some of our top level strategic partnerships. But I love the way that you said referrals, too, right? I jokingly call myself a marketing mercenary. I’m the kind of person who’s like, what are you going to do for me? Right? Because at the end of the day, I get judged by my business objectives for my MEP. My MEP gets judged by its funding partners, right on whether or not it’s delivered the goods. So we do things because they’re the right thing to do, but they’re also right for our business objectives and everything else. And so when you look at this, every single part of this illustrates that power of the partnership, the power of the P and MEP right. Rhode Island Manufacturers Association is the trade association for Rhode Island. It’s the NAM chapter here. The executive director there regularly talks about Polaris MEP and ryma, as we call it, being two cars on a highway going to the same exact destination. We may not take exactly the same lanes all the time, but together, we get to our goal, and only by the both of us getting there does the entire industry come with us. Writing is the Rhode Island textile Innovation Network we actually support that we run their meetings, etc. Win, win, right? Marketing. Mercenary gets her leads. Most importantly, we get the deeper understanding. We get the deeper relationships we can do, direct matchmaking, all sorts of things to strengthen textiles, because they are so important in this state, right? It’s just when you look at all these things, even like, again, we talked about food right? Rhode Island Food Policy Council, hope in Maine, all of these things as much as we can come together to leverage their strengths, and that’s how we pay off on our little slogan, which is what we want to say, that we are the resource for Rhode Island manufacturers. That doesn’t mean that if you call me up every day and you say, I need somebody who can write a social media campaign for me. I’m going to say great member of my team will do it for you. No member of our team, that’s not where they’re best suited. We’re going to get you to the right partner, whether it’s a vendor partner or one of these strategic partners, to help you get to your need.

Curt Anderson  49:17

Absolutely love it. So I just fantastic. And so again, this is a great you know, if you’re a private business owner, a manufacturer, you know, creating, you know, having that friends and family network on your website, like this, I tell you, from an SEO standpoint, this is incredibly valuable, just from a credibility standpoint, when you try to be everything to everybody. Damon, what

Damon Pistulka  49:37

happens you are nothing to know,

Curt Anderson  49:40

nothing to know. I love what you’re doing here, Erin, is like, you’re teeing it up. Like, hey, this is where we specialize. But guess what? We have a nice, vast, robust network of other subject matter experts that if you need this, we’ve got, you know, we have a guy or we have a gal that’s going to help you move the needle. Because you’re focusing on the top line, bottom line, pipeline. Right? Yeah. And

Erin Read  50:01

we always are welcoming new partners, and there are partners who might work with us on one thing and not another, right? So I’m thinking we have this extraordinary, you know, kind of system that we have here. But even like when you look at, for example, the SBDC, every single state has an SBDC, every single state has an apex accelerator. Every single state has an MEP, right? These are things that you can if you kind of recognize that and you start to really understand what their metrics are for success, because I’m pretty sure they have some marketing mercenaries too, right? So it really does have to be a win win, right? But if you sit there and you say, Okay, hi, I don’t actually know somebody in this right? Or we don’t have yet the strongest relationship there. How can we do it? Right? And then I cannot underestimate I cannot, I shouldn’t say I cannot speak more strongly and passionately about some of our governmental partners, right, the Rhode Island commerce Corporation. We are so very, very lucky. That’s our quasi governmental economic development organization. Every state has one. Ours is exceptional. With with few people, they get all of the ever together, and they regularly bring us in. We all swarm, right? There’s a wonderful food manufacturer. They need help to expand to the next level. They literally will bring in for that, meeting ourselves, the SBDC, Apex Rhode Island commerce, so that, that way the client talks. Once we all see it, we say, hey, you know what, Rhode Island commerce, you guys are the best for making sure that they could use an innovation grant that comes from the Rhode Island commerce Corporation for that, and make sure that they’re set up for the tax benefits at the other end, SBDC, he needs some help applying for a little bit of a package through the SBA. You’re the best at that Apex accelerators. We’ve got a municipal contracting opportunity here. You’re going to do that. And if we’re successful at those fronts, they have got to ramp up their productivity and their efficiency and their quality and get a food safety that’s us, right? It doesn’t dilute. It’s so much stronger when we can work together that way. So it’s really great. The other great partner, this is going to sound like an odd one, is the Department of Corrections. So you guys have spoken to other people, I’m sure, about second chance as part of our pipeline, right? I mentioned Lindsay Brickle earlier. She’s our Director of Workforce and community partnerships. So she had this idea a number of years ago that based on the amount of demand we had, specifically for CNC Computer Numerical Control train, we needed more people coming out. We couldn’t just get it through a program that is incredibly successful that we have with the community college for down. We needed more. And there was this untapped thing Lindsay managed to in a facility at the women’s facility where you have to, of course, check your phone at the door. She managed to build out a workshop that includes internet connected lasers, machines that women go down in and in cohorts of six at a time are trained, and then, through work release and everything else, go straight into jobs. It’s extraordinary. We did that thanks to incredible cooperation from the Community College of Rhode Island, from the Department of Commerce, from the State Department of Labor and training, from Rhode Island commerce, from even our State Governor’s office. None of that would have been possible if we hadn’t sat there and said, Let’s work the problem together, right? And if they weren’t open to it, we’re incredibly lucky here in the state,

Curt Anderson  53:29

right? Man, I’ll tell you. Dropped like that was awesome. How about Diane Byers, last comment there? Yeah, yeah.

Damon Pistulka  53:36

She said we, we are all better together. Love our partners and referral networks.

Erin Read  53:41

Yeah, here, here. Diane, I know you guys do that down in Philadelphia, yep, yep.

Curt Anderson  53:45

She’s with me. She’s with attack, the Mid Atlantic TAC, and so she knows firsthand exactly how important those partners are. So, Erin, this is absolutely phenomenal. I know like we could, we could chat for like next three hours. We’re coming into, I think I told you probably shouldn’t, yeah. So anyway, so we’ll start winding down here, but as as we wind down, first off, thank you. But I have, I have a couple more quick, super quick questions for you. How about for friends and family out there? You’ve been fierce, you know, marketer. You know that your entrepreneurial spirit, you have a contagious enthusiasm is you’ve been, you know, through your illustrious career working with clients, manufacturers, what would you say is the best business advice that you’ve ever received or that you would love to pass along, best business advice that you’ve ever received or that you would love to pass along?

Erin Read  54:35

Probably two of them my old boss, Todd har from creating results, which was a marketing agency I worked for for 13 years, he used to remind me that time was not elastic. So when I would put too much on my plate with some sort of idea that I don’t know, I’d get a tiny, whiny, you know, TARDIS to give me an extra six days to get something done. He said, time is not elastic. So that’s good advice not to try to take on way too much. But, you know, I think the other bit of advice that I really loved was somebody once said to me, you know, the only change that people like is from a gumball machine. And that sounds like the stupidest business advice you’ve ever heard, right? But this is the way I’ve interpreted it. Whether or not this is the way it was supposed to be, it’s just that really, you know, change is inevitable, and for most people, change is is hard and change is scary, right? And we in the MEP network, and we as enormously fabulous consultants and advisors, Curt and Damon, that’s what you guys are, right? You’re always helping your clients change, and change is hard, right? And even as humans, just dealing with other humans, change is hard, so our job, because we are not gumball machines, and nobody is going to like change on its face, right? Our job is to make that change more human, less stressful, more successful, just kinder. That’s what we do.

Curt Anderson  56:02

Drop the mic. Erin  man, it was like, That was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. So, alright, the only change that people like is from a gumball machine. Time is not elastic. We’ve got top line, bottom line pipeline, all sorts of just incredible value in this conversation. Erin, like this had to be like one of the fastest hours of all time. Dean, yes, this was phenomenal. Damon, your takeaways, your thoughts as we as we wind down, what are your No,

Damon Pistulka  56:28

I just think that just, you know, for me, I just love what I what I hear, and how you’re partnering there in Rhode Island with all the agencies to really help the manufacturers. I mean, bring the resources to them so they can really thrive and and making a difference.

Erin Read  56:44

Thank you. I can’t thank you too. Enough talk about making a difference, what you guys do every week, day in and day out, to help us in the MEP national network, not be the best kept secret, and more than that, to help manufacturing as an industry, as a great growth career, as an incredible driver of our economy, to not be a secret. Thank you. And we are really grateful for your ambassadorship, your partnership. So thank you very much. Well,

Curt Anderson  57:12

thank you, Erin. So alright, as that means a ton to us. Thank you. We met that was that was special. So hey, you know what? It’s Valentine’s Day. Let’s see if this works. Damon, let’s see if I can get this to work. Does it work? Does it work? Let’s see, sometimes it works. I’m terrible

Erin Read  57:25

at this. There

Curt Anderson  57:26

it is. There it is.

Erin Read  57:27

More like a liver. Hey,

Damon Pistulka  57:30

Curt, can send the heart?

Curt Anderson  57:31

I haven’t. I haven’t mastered that. But so that was for everybody. Everybody out there in Valentine’s Day, we’re going to close down first off. Aaron, thank you. We appreciate you. We applaud you, we commend you for just your passion, your enthusiasm, your energy of what you’re doing in Rhode Island is just off the charts. Just, hey, I got a big round of applause. Damon, big, stay innovation here for Erin Read for just absolutely Gotcha. So all right, big thank you. Connect with Aaron on LinkedIn. Check out Polaris. If you are manufacturer in another state, we encourage you, we invite you, we welcome you. Check out the MEP network and just see how they can help you become a better manufacturer. Man, if you get a chance, go back they I don’t see your thunder Damon, but, you know, hit that rewind button and listen to Erin all over again, because there was just tons of value here. So we’ll close out on this. Just go out and be someone’s inspiration, just like our dear friend, Erin, and you too will make the world a better place, my friend. So Damon, close us out. Erin, hang out with us for one minute. But Damon closes out on this wonderful Valentine’s Day. Alright,

Damon Pistulka  58:35

thanks everyone for being here today. Lots of great comments and Diane, thank you so much for dropping the last couple comments, she says change is what forces us to get better and improve or

Curt Anderson  58:46

fold

Damon Pistulka  58:47

and be left behind. That’s awesome, awesome way to leave it. Like Curt said, if you got in this late and you didn’t hear all the wonderful things that are happening in Rhode Island with the Polaris MEP, go back to the beginning and start over and listen to Erin, incredible information on the Polaris MEP and what’s happening in Rhode Island. Thanks so much for sharing that with us today. Aaron, thanks all of you that are listening and didn’t comment. We appreciate that you’re here with us every week, every week doing this. We will be back again next week. Everyone. Have a great weekend. We’ll be back See you.