Teri Klug: Creating 10,000 Jobs

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Hey, let’s thanks for joining us for another episode of learningfromothers.com. Today’s going to be a great guest. Teri Klug has a diverse background, which says it goes into a lot of industries that I am not familiar with. So I’m excited to learn some new things today. So, Teri, thanks for joining us.

My pleasure. So you have, um, a pretty diverse background. Um, why don’t you give us the crash course on what you’re into nowadays, and then we’ll kind of work backwards into how you got into the career that you’re in right now. Um, my company focuses on helping companies with strategy development and project manage Maryland.

Really helped me companies the bigger picture and how they can relate to them.

So how now, how long have you been in this industry?

Um, but on my own,

you know what, sorry, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, we’re going to need to know we’re going to need to start. It’s like, as soon as the mic cuts to her, then I don’t hear now. I hear like when she’s not on the main focus. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of learningfromothers.com. Today’s guest is Teri CLU who brings a diverse background in a variety of industries that I’m not personally familiar with.

So I’m excited to learn today, Teri, thanks for joining us. Hi, thanks for having me. It’s great to be with you. Uh, so why don’t you tell us, um, give our listeners a little taste of the type of industry that you’re in and the profession, and then let’s work our way backwards into how you got into that industry.

Great. Um, well, I founded my company strategic development about five years ago now, which as an entrepreneur, um, most companies don’t survive the first time here. So I’m, I’m proud of that achievement. Um, I primarily focus on economic development, business development and strategy for companies. I help them with their connections with each other and really an overall solution provider to their companies.

And is there, give us an example of your clients that you work with? Um, well, my clients are primarily, um, mid to large. Uh, they have, um, usually a complex problems they want to solve. Um, and they bring me in to either leverage the network of people that I know and, or to help have me help them partner with other companies.

So do you offer more kind of like at one time service companies bring you in for one time service versus like an ongoing it’s usually ongoing. Cause they, they find the value in, um, in the creative, uh, way I’m able to help them position their company in with other companies. So it just is, it’s usually ongoing, but it can be one time, two, if it’s a one time thing, mainly how the relationship starts.

Yeah. Right, right. Give us an example. So the listeners can better understand your skill set of the types of common problems that you usually come in and help businesses solve. Sure. Um, let’s say you are, um, trying to win a grant. Um, uh, I can leverage a, a group of subject matter experts and another, uh, consulting company that I’ve worked with in the past, um, to help position your company in the best way possible to go win that, that business.

Um, if you’re, uh, an eBay and you’re looking to expand your footprint into Utah, um, I can help you find your labor force. Find your real estate, uh, work with government officials in helping you figure out which tax credit and sedatives, um, would apply or not apply and help you introduce you to the people that, that run those programs through both the state and economic development engines that run our state.

Um, but also just help you connect to your business environment here and help you feel really good about making that investment into a new place. It’s always fascinating to hear or about such large decision making processes and then finding out who’s who’s behind it know. Um, so offline, you kind of told me a little bit about some of the projects you’ve worked on, um, largest utility grade solar project.

Um, Boeing’s vertical fin and horizontal stabilizer. So how do you, how do you even get into this world? That seems like such a technical. Feel to be in with, and you have to have such a broad scope of skill sets and contacts. So how do you, how did you get to where you’re at now? Yeah, sure. Um, economic development primarily is a team sport.

I will say that, uh, there’s a lot of people that come into making those types of investments as large investments into a community. Um, my. Path is as a set of pretty Securitas route. I graduated from the university of Utah with a geography degree. People go really geography. Um, and I always tell the grads up there, like, you know, just because you graduate in a certain thing doesn’t mean that that’s the forever thing.

I think, um, geography is a wonderful thing because it makes you curious about your surroundings. And, uh, population and, and aware of demographics. And there there’s some core things in that that are cool. Um, but I, uh, was, I started at the U is going into business. Um, my father and I ran bowling alley together and there was our family business for over 40 years growing up in sugar house and just.

The foundation of what it is to, to be in customer service and have customer care, um, was really important in that business. And then, um, you know, the growing up my father, we used to live out in Sandy and we would drive into my private school into town. And he would say, you see that that is the fault scarp.

And we would drive by Lokai and just above Lokai, there is a. A very large, about 150, 200 foot drop, which is the fault scarf for the Wasatch ball. And he said, one day that is going to, it’s gonna break. And there’s going to be a wave across the Valley and everything on the West side is gonna sink. Cause there will be liquefaction.

And he said, Oh, by the way, it sits over an aquifer. And so that building is going to sink and explode. So you got to get out of it. So as you can imagine, I was terrified as a little girl, he did this in many facets of my life. Um, we were avid skiers and, and there’s a place up at Alta that has a Creek and it has a lot of powder.

And he said, if you ski in there, you know what girls. There, they find dead people down there in the summertime because they feed in, they drown and they find them in their ski clothes, just skeletons. And so this were tactics that he used throughout our childhood, but this one on earthquakes really stuck.

And so, um, I was about, um, maybe a year, year and a half into college. And, um, I saw this course offering and it said earthquakes fires, floods, hazard mitigation. And I thought. Well, maybe if I learn more about this, I won’t be so afraid. And, uh, took the course and was awarded a paid internship at the state of Utah.

Working in emergency management. Um, and they had then acid, you know, we’ve started this kind of sub program in, uh, the geography department and we’d love for you to actually go through it. So I went through, um, and got a geography degree with an emphasis in natural hazard reduction. Um, ended up in, well, amending the national flood insurance or helping implement the national flood insurance program for the state of Utah, uh, visited.

Over 70 communities in our state, helping them get their ordinances. Right. And all of that. And again, all of these things are like little stepping stones to the next career. The next, does that make sense? Do you want me to keep going into the career path? No, it’s, you know, it’s funny. We had a guest, um, a little while ago, Chad man, and, um, his, his father.

Gave him a task of looking at this pinball machine, which, which snowballed into him becoming an electrical engineer. So yeah, absolutely. It’s amazing the paths and you know, that level, I think, um, as I said, I think curiosity is the most important thing a young person can have. Um, and I think that the more that you can learn and pay attention to, like what.

You know, I think that there’s actually science that says the brain gets activated. When I’m curious, you know, instead of saying, I don’t know, I’m actually activate your brain and say, what do I need to know? And ask it a question. I think as, um, that has served me so well in my career life, I can’t even begin to tell you that.

I mean, it’s, um, you know, being inside almost every manufacturing facility, Um, and most of the large corporate offices throughout the Wasatch front thing, things, how things are made and distributed gives you a perspective. But if I just walked through and said, yeah, okay, you’re just this. And, and instead of asking myself, what do I need to know here?

What is that, what does that machine do? How does it do it and get a basis, level of understanding of how that company operates. So Y you can help them more. Um, I think the greatest thing outside of curiosity is love and where you can plug into, I am really curious about this and I I’m curious enough to think that I might really like it or love it.

That’s a driver. So. Yeah. Yeah. If I take a step real quick back, do you still both? Uh, yes I do. From time to time, I had, um, a very bad bike accident that, uh, I have, uh, impact in shoulder. And, um, so I, I don’t go, like I used to, but my highest score was a two 78. So it is in my genes to be a very good bowler.

Do you have any tips? Improve my game? Yes, I do basically line your finger up with the arrow and then shake the air, shake the hand as you let go of the ball. This is your grip. That’s coming up and it’s pointing right at that, that center to middle arrow. That’s where you want. You just want the ball to go there.

And, um, my father, uh, um, Was awarded, uh, he’s in the hall of fame for bullying. And so was my grandfather. Wow. Yeah, it was a big deal. My grandfather was built one of the first bowling alleys here in town, so. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I can help you with bowling. I, I can’t, the experts can make it sound so simple.

Just shake the arrow’s hand. Hold my hand and say, shake the hand. Let it go. But yeah, and it’s practice too. I think in life, um, life requires you to show up. And so, um, I, I do think that the 10,000 hour rule for anything professional is really, um, a pretty good litmus test. If you want to be really good at something you’ve got to put the time in, uh, there’s a quote that says when opportunity knocks working.

Yeah. And I totally subscribed to that. It does take work. How do I not hear all these quotes before? I don’t know. I was going to say that’s going on my sheet. I’ve got this sheet now, since we’ve been doing these podcasts of all these quotes and I’m definitely putting that one on the yeah. That’s yeah, it’s true.

Yeah. That’s one. That’s so good that I feel like I’ve been neglected that I haven’t heard it before. What am I wrong? So geography obviously played a big part in, um, kinda launching your career. Do you find that as you work with businesses, um, did, does geography still come into play a lot on how you help these businesses to a degree?

I think, um, in economics, uh, demography and, uh, really. What’s coming in our economy, um, and population and how population moves and all of those things, have they have an impact on the part of the decision process, you know, where somebody can find a future labor force if we’re at under 2% unemployment in our state, which is awesome, but where do we bring the people in?

And then we have in migration. And what does that look like for this a hundred mile corridor along the Wasatch front, um, in particular to Utah? Um, what does that look like? And then, um, so yes, that was a longer answer to your question, but I really feel that geography plays, um, understanding the environment, understanding what’s possible.

Um, you know, Uh, as pollution rises and, and there’s regulations around those, you have to understand that. And that has, uh, there’s a foundation of the science that you learned in geography, the statistics, the demographics that will, are definitely helpful. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, you know, I’m interested in some of the projects you had mentioned.

So tell us about, um, the largest utility grade solar project that was in place. That is an awesome, uh, seven years out of my life, uh, uh, project, but also a great love. Um, it started, um, Probably the first day on the job. When I, when I went to work for economic development corporation of Utah and, um, they had, uh, had some trouble, they, they felt like they had been, or did some grants and then there was some change in government and that had gone away.

And so really coaching them to say, Hey guys, there’s, there’s been a death in the family. And, and you can’t go back. So how do we go forward? I think sometimes, um, we focused on too much of what has happened in our past, and don’t focus in on the present moment of what you need to solve. And, um, so we started to go back and say what’s possible.

And, um, you know, they, they had really great land, which really great solar output. It was flat. Um, the land, uh, could be, be used for co grazing and solar. Um, and, but there’s a study time that goes into it. You know, it’s not like you can just go put a solar project anywhere. You have to make sure that the trends, transmissions lines have a capacity in them.

You have to get them through the regulatory side of it. You need to find. An off taker. So you have to actually it’s called a power purchase agreement and you have to find somebody to buy that power. And so they were looking on the private market. It had several meetings they’d gone through the study. Um, and then, um, the, the, the offer, the, the, the tax incentives and stuff would move a penny and it would move the project from the black to the red.

And so very complex financial structures in order to make it work. So it took a long time before the technology of solar actually got low enough so that the power purchase agreement could happen. And the power purchase agreement ended up happening with Rocky mountain power, which is now part of their blue sky program.

So they, when you purchase into that, that power comes from, um, pair one, Utah. Yeah, it’s located down South. It’s a great project. Yeah. I’m familiar with that project. So I had solar installed, uh, you know, two years ago or so and so on the research, I was familiar with that. Um, but, but that’s interesting. I didn’t know.

It makes total sense and it sounds really obvious about the power purchase agreement, but that would’ve never crossed my mind. That, um, you have to go engage and find a buyer. So when other people set up similar projects, is, is the first, um, potential buyer. Do they usually go private or do they usually go to like utilities?

You know, if there’s a need, um, and sometimes the need is a tax liability. So I’m going to invest in the solar project so I can. Take the tax credit so that I don’t have, you know, so it really, as I said, they’re so complex because it just depends on really the off-take. You have to have a power purchase agreement.

So you have to have somebody that needs the power and then you probably also have to have somebody that needs the tax liability, because those are the financial mechanisms that make a project work, and then you have to have. The access to the pipeline, you have to be able to wheel it. And, and, and sometimes you get line loss.

There’s, there’s a lot that goes into that as well. But, um, those are what make a longterm, but once it’s in, um, typically they’re very, they’re very reliable. Um, but part-time power. So it’s not baseline power. It’s not like a gas peaker plant or, um, a coal plant because you have to. And that’s why I think my takeaway is whether it’s geothermal or whatever you need all the different mixes right now.

And I, I may qualify right now because. Um, I think our world totally changing and there will be something that comes up, especially in the energy field that changes how we, um, Consume energy and it will be totally different. I think transportation’s totally changing. Um, and I don’t think a lot of people are eyes up about really what is happening in our world.

But, um, I do believe there’s some amazing scientists out there that are, that are in their labs and they’re dreaming up incredible things for our future. That really going to be life changing for all of us. Yeah, I heard a statistic. I actually read it just yesterday and I’ve heard it before and I’m probably going to slaughter it and make it easy.

Maybe you can advise on, you know, what it is, but it was something along the lines, uh, that in two minutes of daylight from this, you know, two minutes of energy from the sun is enough that we consume in the entirety of a year, humanity or something crazy every day, just in two minutes of. Of what throws at us if we could capture it more than we would ever need.

Yeah. And it’s really about making sure that there’s no clouds that day. And I mean, those are the, those are the things that, um, and that technology though, if you can, if there’s something that actually captures and harnesses two minutes as a SunPower or golden, um, you know, I think it’s going to be really important for the United States to be energy independent.

And so that means that we have to come up with solutions and there’s a lot of people like there’s a bloom energy boxes that basically it’s like a battery, um, gas fed battery system. Um, eBay has it running out in there, um, uh, South Jordan facility and, um, EDA did some incredible things to be, uh, have a zero footprint here in here in our state.

Um, when eBay. Went to Arizona. I thought it was very creative. They went out and they said, we’re going to let an RFP, and this is what you get to solve. And so they let the professionals come in and say, they said, this is what we want. We want free cooling on 127 degree day in the Arizona desert. And if you are going to win this, you’ll solve it.

And I’m American. And not only America, but, um, I think, I think that we’re very innovative people, but we have to activate the brain and the curiosity to have these outcomes. Well, too, right now there’s an, there’s a data center in Arizona that eBay owns that has free cooling on 127 degree day. And we put the engineering mind to work and it will.

It will go to work. I mean, look at the boring company, look at, um, I mean, look at the technologies that are coming out these days. I mean, it’s incredible. We are in, in a time that is a time of such technological change. Cool. Sunny, and I really don’t know how to answer what’s coming. I just, well, I know how to answer what’s coming, but I think.

The, the biggest disruptors in our, in our world probably haven’t even been developed yet. Um, I was at a conference last weekend and, um, I asked Peter Maloof, he’s the creative planning and he, um, manages a very large fund of Mmm Mmm. Personal and business finances. And he brought a few mazing speakers in, but I asked him when I talked to him, I said, Peter, if you were me, what would be, what would it be that you’d say go into this industry?

And he just lifted me and he said, Teri, he started laughing. He said, Teri, the first car, the first picture of the car had five horses and buggies and one car. He said, now we have five cars and one autonomy vehicle. And, um, you know, the truth is, is we don’t know what that next level is. You know, I was watching, uh, Peter Damon does, and he had this little flying suit that just puts you, put you, put it on.

And it’s a G it’s like iron man. You don’t have the iron man suit, but it’s iron man. And what does that do to transportation? You know, I, two years ago I had gone to a conference on technology and I was in Las Vegas and they were like, the robots are coming and I was like, Oh, well, whatever. Okay, they’re coming.

It will be a while. Right? Well, I walked over the next morning to get my Jews on the miracle mile at Jamba juice. And as I was walking, I see this new, uh, retail storefront, and it’s the tipsy robot. And Las Vegas has a bartender shortage right now. And this is two robotic arms, uh, alcohol with RFID code up top, an iPad in this kind of credit card swipe.

Wow. Now I’m not suggesting seeing that people want to go to very cold room and swipe their credit card. And B with two robotic arms. I think it’s a misconcept, but if I have a bartender shortage and I served thousands of drinks, I can put that same thing in the back of the convention hall. I can serve thousands of drinks.

They never get sick. They don’t have drug problems. They always show up on time. I don’t have to pay benefits every year. Um, and I can still have the cute girls or guys go deliver the drinks that my friend is what’s going to happen. And it’s going to happen at a rate that we’re not ready for it. We need to be innovative.

We need to be forward thinking and we need to be eyes up, um, because robotics will take away tasks, which will free up time for us to be more innovative. Um, but they project 20 to 50 million jobs going away in the next 10 years. So before we get too far off on the subject, though, you sound real quick.

I’d like to ask you a question about universal basic income. Cause I’ve read up on a lot of what they think automation’s in to do. What are you, what is your take on that? I think at some point, um, you’re going to have to, you know, if the jobs really do go away like that, You’re going to have to have some kind of base level income, but then again, there’s going to be free enterprise as if it’s there.

Then, then you innovate this and you get compensated for innovating that they’ll, there’s always going to have to be a reward system. Um, we can’t just, I don’t think it’s good for the human race. I think we actually, if we’re not innovating and producing and contributing, we will probably go away. So I think, um, but for baseline living while we transition, I think there’s going to be, have to be some kind of answer to that.

Yeah. Sorry for the diversion, but yes, no, thank you. This is very interesting subject to me too. So like I said before we get too far off, I got, cause Damon will bring us right to the path. So I just wanted to make sure I got that one in. I was, I was gonna say the same thing and along the same lines, um, I had.

Read about, you know, as, as if jobs go away and then wages and taxes, you know, come and go as well. And so I’ve heard, um, I think it came up in Seattle with Amazon and you know, all that everyone’s saying how big Amazon is impacting the economy. They’re good in that. And so there’s a proposal for taxation of robotic employees.

What do you think about that as, as the tax wages go out then? I don’t know. I mean, I, I, I think that this is my personal opinion. I don’t want to be a political, this is a nonpolitical, my personal opinion kind of answer to that is that. You know, taxation helps you with your streets, your roads. It helps you with your school systems.

It helps you, uh, with, um, uh, Medicare, Medicaid, social security. That’s what taxation is for. And, um, I’m curious as to see. What happens with all of the things that can be handled by a machine of how much we can reduce the need for taxes as well. Hmm. Mmm. And then in addition, I think as a version 2.0 to 3.0 of the internet, I think Bitcoin is not interesting.

I mean, it’s interesting to sound. I didn’t get on the Bitcoin rise and fall, but I think that the underlying technology of Bitcoin blockchain is fascinating and because it’s so transparent, I think that there’s a way to utilize blockchain, to really streamline governance. And, um, you know, I, I think you would know where your assets are.

You would know, you know, there would be very little fraud, uh, that happens inside and it wouldn’t be personal and be like, Hey, if you do this for me, I will get this. It’s transparent. You would see it. So I think that in, in that instance, if, um, it will be interesting, but nobody knows is the answer. And I certainly don’t know.

That’s just an opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I, there’s so many things that I want to talk about. I want to, before we go to the next subject, I want to go back a little bit, um, back to renewable energy. Um, so what’s your take on the, uh, the progress that the U S has made versus let’s say. Germany and they have, are really well developed renewable energy program, or I think it’s Sweden, um, that does a lot of burning burning of the waste and solves two problems.

It’s sort of the waste that develops power from the burning of that, to, to, to capture that energy. Um, to me that seems like we’re kind of falling behind as far as what I’m hearing other countries are developing. Yeah. Well, I don’t know, because I think that certainly the people primarily who make the panels are all overseas.

Right. There’s very little panel production in the United States and Germany, China, big manufacturers of renewable energy, uh, panels in particular. Um, yeah, and I, I think like the built environment, I mean, think of the United States. Um, we were, we were pioneering when they were fully built. And so I don’t know that it, it hurts us to be a follower in the technology because without question, all of these technologies are becoming exponentially better in time.

And so I think it’s actually to our. Benefit to be a little bit behind. Like when I entered into this conversation with the project down in Parallon, uh, I had gone to SPI, so empower international show and they had literally took Utah in the middle of the fold and, and took it off the map of the United States.

There was no solar in Utah whatsoever.

Sorry. How long ago did you say that was? That was in 2009, 2010, maybe, but 2009 when I was two, that was probably 2010. Um, but here, here we are eight years later and we’re doing pretty well. We’re integrating, we’ve got some utility grade stuff. There’s more in the pipeline. A lot of companies are doing rooftop.

You’ve got uni or university of Utah. I mean, people, companies are being proactive. I think it really helps to have companies inside Silicon slopes because they’re, they have a agreeing culture. And so by getting some of those companies to come to Utah, like eBay, with passionate and they fought for, they fought for the abilities to do some of the technologies that they wanted to do and the offsets, um, to be in our state.

So I think. In that, in that context, it’s really pretty cool. And I think the more diverse that we get as a state, the better off we are. So speaking of businesses in the state of Utah, um, you had mentioned you would help bring O C L headquarters to Utah. So. Educate me and the listeners on what OCL is and why it’s interesting that they’re in Utah.

Okay, great. Great question. Thank you. Um, Oh, let’s see. L a is the about the second or third largest shipping company in the world. And so, um, they were looking to consolidate at the time and we were one of 16 places in the United States that they were investigating. Should we say container ships, correct.

These are big container container ships, not like trains and semis containers. I think one of the largest, uh, shipping container ships in the world, um, they have a very large presence in California at the port and, um, and have invested heavily there. But what they found when they started to investigate it, really Texas was in the running in a big way as well, but they were looking to come where they could have a good lifestyle.

They didn’t have to spend time in traffic that they, um, That they could play on the weekend that they good family environment and that they could hire new people as well. Like all of the executives that I worked with those company, it was astounding. They had all been with the company for over 28 years, the five executives.

Um, it is, you just don’t see that anymore. They really take care of their people and they did a deep dive on Utah. In fact, we met. Probably over a year and a half, two years with the company and then their CEO came here just to check, make sure on his own. He said, I’m just gonna, I said, I flew in last weekend to check on what you were saying was correct.

Um, why is this important? Um, and I had, I’ve had a site selector, a lot of the companies coming in. You know, as, as having Mormons as our predominant, um, religion here is, um, I think that we’re supposed to correct it to the Jesus Christ church of latter day. Um, predominant religion. A lot of companies come in and say, if my, if my, the employee comes from Chicago, are they going to be welcome here?

And, um, You know, it’s a really important conversation to say, everybody’s welcome. And, uh, this is environment, this is what I’ve experienced. Um, and, and, and let them meet everybody in the community. That’s going to add to that conversation from a Mormon perspective, from a non-Mormon perspective from. From a ski bum perspective to whatever it is, it’s really important for a company to understand the assets in the community and OCL did their homework.

Um, and, and we thank goodness, got them here. They’re, they’re located in South Jordan, which is a really good position for them. Uh, they’ve, they’ve hired employees. They’ve created new tax base. Um, a lot of people don’t understand the tax incentive thing, and I think it’s really important when a company is going to come put, um, millions or hundreds of millions or billions into a ground.

If they don’t come no new taxes, zero, if they come. Then you have over time, you have ramped up depending on what their incentive is. It’s ramped up. It’s a little offset. If they have to do every year, what they say they’re going to do. And then they get a little refund. And in, in, uh, you know, a 10 to 20 year timeframe, you have a hundred percent new taxes.

So you, while they’re putting sticks in the ground, you’re giving them a little break from making those investments. But ultimately you get a hundred percent new taxes. Um, so I think the incentives are really important to these companies and with those. Yeah. Well, uh, there, there company culture and who they were going to hire was the, probably that they care so much about their employees.

It’s such a great company. Um, I’ve been so impressed with, uh, their work ethic. Um, just what they do out of South Jordan, Utah, they manage their fleet. Um, from that office, they, they, they get down to each little container what’s going in each ship. The balance of each ship all happens, um, from a back office standpoint, out of salt Lake city, Utah.

Why is this important to you to, I’m sorry, I’m jumping around a little bit, but why is this important to you? To us? We have an inland port opportunity. If, if we invest 8 billion into the inland port in 10 years, that’s 800 billion and it’s not only 800 billion, but if everything that comes out of the West coast from California, there’s no, we are strategically located with highway systems with 80 and 15.

Um, and we can get by truck. You know, most of the, the, from basically, um, Mississippi to the West, it goes within one to two days of shipping or checking. So it comes straight out of the port. It clears customs here. That means manufacturing people, that assemble stuff come here. That means new job based will come here.

That means new residential will come here. That means new schools will be built here. Um, wildly important and who’s leading that conversation yeah. Along with, you know, the governor and everybody else, but really they were the kind of said, Hey, why don’t you guys think about you have this large land parcel?

And I think it would be such an incredible project for the state. Awesome opportunity. That’s interesting. So, um, yeah. I’m glad Kyle chimed in and said these are ships. Cause I was thinking the containers too, but no, we’re talking about the massive yeah. Yeah. There’s actually a ship called the OCL, Utah know.

Yay. Um, that came from us winning the project. They, they, uh, So Val, a Hale from go ahead and his wife out and they actually Christian the ship. That’s cool. Um, so I wanna talk about, um, you know, one other company you had mentioned, um, Boeing, and so you had said vertical fan and horizontal stabilizer and tooling plants.

So explain what vertical fins and horizontal stabilizers are used for and why they’re in Utah. Okay. Great. Um, so, uh, bullying had acquired McDonald Douglas many, many years ago, and they had a site out by the airport and they had some additional land out by the airport and they had started to assemble these, uh, vertical fins.

So the vertical thin is the tail of the aircraft. The big wing that goes up and goes down. That is the vertical fin. Um, and they needed to expand that operation to meet how many vertical fins they needed in South Carolina to put the plane together. And so they moved tooling out of, uh, out of one building, uh, moved the tooling section over to another building and then expanded that, uh, that the line to create the vertical fin.

Um, the horizontal stabilizer, if the fin goes up like this are the two wings that attached to the back to make the back of the aircraft, um, sorry. I’m with my fingers, but if that’s your, they have a little tail wing and that’s the horizontal stabilizer. Um, that was going to be at a facility that was going to be built by the airport in conjunction with this project.

Um, the. Airport had just started to go under its expansion and overnight, um, because of the FAA regulations, all non airlines, nautical use facilities that were around the airport had to be brought up to market rate rent overnight. And so, um, You know, with Boeing, we had, uh, the old, a KraftMaid facility out in West Jordan, but during the 2008 and 2009 was a brand new facility.

Um, but it had to go dark because cabinetry making wasn’t happening when housing was in such a slump. And so, uh, there was a company called Masco that owned the building and we started to look and we said, well, we could build these, uh, horizontal stabilizers. Off airport use and not increase our rent and get a building that’s 850,000 plus fee.

To further develop our needs. Boeing ended up buying that facility in West Jordan and they’re creating new jobs and they’ve, um, they’ve dug down. I think, you know, in order to get the clean room space underneath the line, they’ve dug down in that building. It’s pretty spectacular what they’re doing. The Boeing’s just a class act.

And, um, I can tell you again, there are people are incredible. It was amazing working with that company. Um, everyone from corporate all the way down to their site managers here, um, pretty spectacular people. And again, they’ve been with the company for a really long, long time. So it’s really fun when you get to help that along help help them get.

What the, whether it’s tax incentives or, Hey, how do we tie into this community? College is to create, you know, the programs that we need. What about Boeing and Hexcel working together? Um, Xcel makes carbon fiber, um, very interesting company and, um, So there are some partnerships that just were never formed.

And so through these conversations, some of those partnerships will be able to be formed. Do they manufacture for all Boeing models in that facility? Do you know? No, they don’t. Uh, you know, Boeing has Seattle and South Carolina. Um, there was a bigger project that came in, but, um, I think it stayed in Seattle.

Um, one of the things is of being a right to work. State is really important. Um, in some of the facilities, if there’s a strike, you know, they have to shut down operations where they have specific deadlines to meet for the Dreamliner or whoever they’re building for. Um, those work calls really hurt them.

So being able to have Utah. As a facility and be able to still produce, even though during work stoppages is really a key point for Bali. It’s so interesting. Um, just to hear all the, the, the strategies behind these, these movements with these companies, um, overall, as you’ve worked in economic development, do you have a guess on about how many jobs you’ve contributed to bringing into Utah?

Over 17,000 new jobs and probably closer to 20,000 with new and retain jobs. So, um, it was, uh, a love, I can tell you, I love working with the people and building those relationships and, um, yeah. Holy he’s learning. Like, I, I don’t think you could get an education. Being in the facilities where things are made.

And so wherever you are be curious about it and what can you ask yourself? What can I learn here? Um, I think curiosity can be such a gift to your life. that kind of segue as well. It’s my next question. In addition to curiosity, is, is there anything that you. Like tips you would give listeners, or even if it was your younger self that would help accelerate to get you to where you’re at now or where somebody might want to be.

Sure. Um, I, I read, I try to read a lot and I would say read what, and whether you actually pick up the book physically and read it or read it on audible, the world’s knowledge is in. Well, still read and, and watch YouTube if you have to watch you too, because, but just be careful what you watch on YouTube.

But, um, I would say read a lot and then I recently read the book 10, the 10 X rule. And, um, I think that there’s life balance. So, I mean, he’s like, you gotta weigh in and you gotta do her. Right. And that’s cool. But I do think that there’s something for a young person in particular. So when they come out of college and they just say, you know, I think I want to do this.

Well, I would say whatever that is 10 exits, because I think as especially the young person, that trajectory is hugely important. And either your you’re just going to, you’re going to do this and you’re going to know, I never believed that this and this and that were possible. And then believe in yourself and say, if I don’t know, it I’ll find a way to know it.

I’ll, I’ll figure this out. And also the biggest thing in life, I think is look for resources, you know, ask for help. Um, I think oftentimes we get stuck and we say we stuck life, blah, blah, blah. But we don’t look for resources and there’s so many people. You know, this thing called being human. It’s a human condition and we’re all part of it.

Um, and we all have a different puzzle to it. So put your hand up. Yeah. And ask a question and be on the lookout for the resources that you need, because they they’re more than happy usually to help you. Yeah, I think that’s a common, a common conversation we’ve had with other people that have found successes that, um, successful people want to help.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s a gives back. It’s an opportunity to give a gift back for sure. Right? Well, Teri, we’re going to get wrapping up here in a minute. So outside of work, what else are you into? What do you do in your downtime? Uh, well, I hiked, I climbed a mountain last night, so that was incredible.

And I often can be found lately at night, up in the mountains. Um, I switched it up for safety, but, uh, I go out by myself and, um, much to this. You’re granted my family. They’re like really? And, but I think that life is about getting outside of your comfort zone because what I’ve found in my life. Um, incredible stuff happened from getting outside.

There’s nothing that extraordinary that happens inside my comfort zone. And every night that I go up in the mountains, like last night, it was way up in big Cottonwood Canyon and I, the night sky came up and I’m just in awe of like, we’re just a small speck of dust, but there was a tree and there was Mars.

And it was right there. And I just sat there for a minute and I was watching it and maybe it was a little wild, but within about 20 minutes, we went like this. And so we don’t think we’re moving, but every day we travel 500,000 miles through space. And so to be curious about how that happens. And how lucky we are to be here and not waste a second of, uh, your special time here.

Don’t waste it. Well, now I feel obligated to, I have to go conquer the world.

I was saying, I have a list of quotes. I also have a list of books. So I know you said an extra role, but what’s a number one. Oh yes. I, my, my all time favorite book, um, I think today is change your questions. Change your life by Marley Adams. Uh, it’s a fabulous read. Um, it really. I don’t think any of us should get stuck in judgment.

And she uses the judge your path versus the learner path. And so there’s a set of questions that she’s come up with. And I think that, yeah, when you get good at this technique about asking questions versus standing in judgment. So when I know something, I know something you’re right. You’re wrong. Well, what else, what perspective could they bring to you that.

Isn’t just that, what is, you know, could you get out of your judgment? And I would say you’ll ratchetness and think of the house. What else could their perspective be that they could be drawing, adding, and they could be standing. And that creates team. And then, I mean, it’s just, there’s, it’s a great, easy read, highly recommend that, um, for the economy read accidental superpower.

Uh, I think it’s by Peter XY Han. Um, it, it’s an interesting, it’ll make you feel depressed. Um, it talks about how the baby boomers are gonna retire and, um, they’re 80% of the spend in our economy. And so in late 19, early 20, 20, a big surprise, there is a crash coming. Um, I think everybody feels it. Um, I’m not too sure how to mitigate it.

Um, but it’s really the, as these guys retire worldwide. They will start to put their investments in smarter, um, favor and there, there just won’t be the credit interest rates will rise and we’ll look for about a 10 year period of where we have, have to kind of bump along a little bit. It does. Yay. Uh, have, have the United States coming back out, but great reads and it has geography in it too.

So that’s probably why geographer in me likes it, but there’s, there’s a great books out there. Uh, You know, figure out what you really like and, and just try to read a book a week and you can do it in your car. Cause we all spend a lot of time in our cars on the way to work and stuff. So I highly recommend that.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Alright, so we have this tradition where we end the conversation with a random question. So I, we have random question generator, so none of us know what’s coming,

so. All right. So your question Teri is what was your favorite children’s book? Ooh, um, that’s an interesting one. I don’t, you know, so I don’t have children. Um, so that’s, that’s a tough question for me as well. Um, take your children’s book. There was something about a little bunny that loved more, um, struggling with the name of it.

Um, yeah, I’ll give it, I’ll give you a backup. All right. Okay. So your backup is. If you are asked to teach a class, what class would you teach? I would teach a class. It would be a class coupled on two things. Um, I think I’ve discovered a pathway of how to live. Um, they create more joy and joy is not, um, just.

Yay. I’m happy. Every day. Joy is the calm during the storm as well. Cause we all have storms. And so I would teach on that and I’d also teach on the future of technology. Um, I am passionate about both of those topics and um, I have site and I’ve studied these topics in depth. Um, and then coupled with my background, uh, through the Olympics and economic development honing companies, um, Has given me some perspective.

Awesome. We’re going to, again, for sure, because we try to glance over the Olympics and maybe we should do a technology focused one. I gotta say, this is one, uh, you know, we’ve been fortunate enough to have great guests, but I think this is one that, um, I learned a lot and, and, uh, was definitely, uh, a personal interest.

Yeah. Thanks Teri. I’m so glad to meet you guys and we’ll see you soon. Bye.