August 14, 2024 • 20 mins
In this episode of Connect the Knox, host Julia Hurley sits down with Travis Howerton, local entrepreneur, CEO, and co-founder of RegScale. Travis shares his journey through U.S. national security, his roles at Oak Ridge National Lab and Bechtel, and how his experiences led to the creation of RegScale. They discuss the entrepreneurial climate in Knoxville, the region's growth and appeal to tech innovators, and the impact of clean energy initiatives. Travis also delves into the exciting opportunities for young professionals in Knoxville. Tune in to learn how Knoxville is quickly becoming a hub for innovation and clean energy.
Show Highlights:
(00:00) - Intro
(00:38) - Meet Travis Howerton
(01:59) - Why people are relocating to Knoxville
(03:18) - East Tennessee as a clean energy powerhouse
(05:08) - RegScale’s role in local nuclear facilities
(06:25) - Travis’ background
(07:12) - What RegScale looks for in students
(08:37) - Ad - Just Homes Group
(09:09) - RegScale’s growth plan
(11:11) - Incorporating AI
(12:53) - Who is Travis Howerton?
(14:15) - Opportunities for younger people in Knoxville
(16:28) - Favorite parts of Knoxville
(18:05) - Where you can find out more about RegScale
Links Referenced:
RegScale’s Website: https://regscale.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Connect the Knox.
I'm Julia Hurley, your host for the show, Connecting Knoxville to the Nation.
Today's guest is Travis Howerton, local entrepreneur, CEO, and
founder of a massive tech company that protects Some of the world's
(00:26):
biggest secrets over at ORNL and some pretty big places like that.
Travis, please introduce yourself to our group of people across
the nation that tune into our podcast and thank you for being here.
So I'm Travis Howerton.
Uh, as you mentioned, I'm one of the co founders and the CEO at RankScale.
I spent 20 plus years in U.
S.
national security.
(00:47):
Um, I retired as the first Chief Technology Officer of the U.
S.
Nuclear Weapons Program, went over to Oak Ridge National Lab and
ran their IT Service Division for a couple years, and then, uh, led
digital transformation globally for Bechtel, uh, for a few years.
Uh, now, everywhere we went, we kind of found that compliance
processes kind of slowed everything down in these large organizations.
(01:10):
And we got frustrated enough that we decided to do something about it.
And we, we, uh, built a company that's automating
many of these risk and compliance challenges that help
the largest companies in the world innovate faster.
That's a lot.
I don't, I may or may not have seen you.
I'm not sure.
Were you at the NOW conference?
I've been to the ServiceNow conference in the past, but not, uh, recently.
(01:33):
Or are you talking about the Nuclear Opportunities Workshop?
Yeah, Nuclear Opportunities Workshop.
I actually attended this year.
Oh, unfortunately I wasn't able to make it this year.
I was at, uh, the Department of Energy CyberCon conference.
But I have attended in the past, and
Of course, the DOE has their own cyber call in conference.
That's amazing!
Yep, and uh, but I am a proud member of ETEC for many years, so we
(01:55):
do generally try to support economic development in East Tennessee.
I love it.
Okay, so for everybody out there, we have
so many people that tune into this podcast.
One, because a lot of people relocate to the Knoxville, Tennessee area.
East Tennessee is very ripe for relocations.
We're using a lot of acronyms.
Let's throw that out there and kind of and help people understand
(02:17):
one, what we're talking about and two, what that means for them.
What it means for Knoxville is that it's, uh,
we're becoming more of an entrepreneurial city.
And so when you think of traditional venture capital, you think
of San Francisco and Austin and Boston and these big mega hubs.
We were able to raise a very large Series A round, uh, at a very atypical place.
(02:39):
And so what's changing in the world post COVID is the
money's not always isolated in these centers now, which
opens up investment in, uh, new areas like Knoxville.
And what makes Knoxville interesting is you've got
a strong university in the University of Tennessee.
You've got cheap power in TVA.
You've got a lot of entrepreneurial talent at Oak Ridge National Lab.
(03:00):
And you put all those things together with a very friendly
business climate and a very, uh, relatively low cost
of living relative to those other hubs I mentioned.
And it starts to become a very attractive place for outside investment, which
helps grow businesses, which helps attract more of those people to Knoxville.
Yes, I so agree.
And eTech is something that I've been in and out
(03:22):
of, I would say for the better part of now 12 years.
I remember ETEC when their coffee is actually started at 5 30 a.
m.
I know they've gone to 7 30 a.
m.
So it's been a minute.
But for those out there that don't know, ETEC, East Tennessee Economic
Council, and we have the TEC Corridor between Oak Ridge and Knoxville,
Oak Ridge National Lab, Bechtel, which used to be Bechtel Jacobs.
(03:43):
Y12, K25.
We have, what is that new company that just got
Bill Gates to invest in the Knoxville market?
Is it Kairos Power?
Oh no, but they're new as well.
They were at the NOW conference and they're talking about
Trillium mining and bringing like a gram of Trillium here
that can power almost an entire city on one gram of Trillium.
(04:05):
We are definitely becoming a hub for clean energy investment.
Uh, especially with their background and expertise in nuclear.
So if you read some of Bill Gates books, who most people
would not describe him as a staunch Republican, right?
But uh, he, he is big on nuclear being the only answer to climate change
in any reasonable amount of time that is cost effective in any way.
(04:29):
So you see in all these really high tech clean energy
nuclear companies that make safe nuclear reactors.
And so when you think nuclear, most people think scary, Chernobyl, Oppenheimer
movie, all those sorts of bad images come to mind, but these are microreactors.
They're very small.
They're inherently safe and they put off no
(04:52):
fossil fuels or anything bad for the environment.
So it's You Exciting.
So if you look at the capabilities we have at Y 12 and ORNL, the capability we
have at TVA, and then the money coming from the governor's office to accelerate
nuclear, it's an exciting time to be doing nuclear things in East Tennessee.
It really is.
So tell everybody out there how you are
encompassing all of that into your company.
(05:13):
So we just want to be part of the ecosystem.
So we're big on rising tides, float all boats.
And so you just want to create opportunities.
So whether it's in engineering and nuclear, For us, we're a
high tech, uh, sort of traditional San Francisco style startup.
So you want to be in high tech and cyber,
there's going to be options in Knoxville now.
(05:34):
And so it's, uh, I never thought living in Tennessee that this opportunity
would be available to me that we could raise this kind of money.
We could build a big company, uh, like you would in San
Francisco or Austin, that you could do that in Knoxville.
But we're hoping to set a blueprint for it, um,
so that others can follow and do the same things.
(05:55):
Uh, but it's, it's exciting.
There's a lot of opportunity for new jobs.
We've got a bunch posted now.
Um, and so it's creating jobs.
People are relocating to Knoxville to be part of RegScale
and we hope as we grow that more and more of that happens.
We're excited for you.
I love to learn all about the new businesses coming to the Knoxville market.
It's one of the best things about this podcast.
We get to announce local people who own local things, who
(06:18):
globally and nationally make a difference in this market.
So that's huge.
You live in Oak Ridge, you went to Oak Ridge, tell us about you as a person.
So I live in Oak Ridge.
So I worked in the Department of Energy, which their hub is here in Oak Ridge.
So I've lived here since.
2010, I grew up in Knoxville, went to Central High School, got my first degree
(06:38):
at Pellissippi State, then went to Tuscaloosa College, got my master's at
Boston University, spent a little time at headquarters at DOE in Washington, D.
C., but Pretty much have always maintained a residence here in East Tennessee,
but currently live out of Oak Ridge, love it here, work out of Cherokee Farms.
So, we put our office in the new research park just across from the
(07:01):
hospital on the water there at the UT campus, which is a beautiful
location, gives us great access to the brightest students on campus
as a recruiting pipeline and we've really enjoyed it out there.
So let's talk about that.
What do you look for as far as maybe interns or recruitment?
I know, uh, and many people I'm sure assume if they don't know that you
do have to have some special clearances to be able to work in the career
(07:23):
that you're working in, especially with the companies that you work with.
What does that process look like for maybe a student looking for
that opportunity maybe to be in engineering or nuclear energy?
Or something along the lines that you would want them
as an intern, or possibly as a hire in the future.
Yeah, so at RegScale, our R& D office is in Knoxville, so we're looking for the
(07:45):
best and brightest computer scientists, uh, software engineers, data scientists.
Um, uh, who want to work in high tech entrepreneurial sort of environment.
They don't want the traditional corporate ladder.
If they'd like to get on the ground floor of something, build it, have
more of a creative entrepreneurial spirit is kind of what we look for here.
(08:05):
Um, we recruit nationally for our marketing sales, other sorts of
opportunities, but in general, all of our R& D is local here in Knoxville.
Uh, it does, we, as you mentioned, we do national security
work for the Department of Defense and other places,
so it does come with expectations of clean living.
So, you know, you can pass a drug test, uh, and those sorts of
(08:26):
things, uh, nothing unsavory in your background, but if you can meet
those requirements and you enjoy engineering on complex problems.
Um, uh, there's opportunities at Rexco.
We all know that real estate is location, location, location.
Our team at Just Homes Group has the true expertise,
(08:47):
pairing buyers and sellers with the right opportunities.
Whether you're looking to buy or sell a home right here
in Knoxville, Lenoir City, Clinton, or Farragut, we have
the expertise throughout every Knoxville surrounding area.
Call Just Homes Group today.
(09:07):
I love that.
I love that so much.
So tell us about the next year of your growth plan.
Where would you, where are you on target to be?
What are your future plans and where would
you like to be in the Knoxville market?
So over the next year we plan to continue growth.
We're growing rather rapidly now, so we've raised our Series A.
So in the next year or so, somewhere in that
(09:29):
time frame, we'd like to raise a Series B.
At that point, we should probably double in size or so.
So that'll be the next huge tranche of growth for us as we
go try to capture this continuous controls monitoring market.
But that's the trajectory we're on.
We're still a hyper growth company and looking to continue on that track.
(09:50):
Tell me what you mean by continuous controls.
So, in the past, big companies would buy these tools called GRC tools,
Governance, Risk, and Compliance, and basically it's a way of looking at
what you're doing, making sure you're meeting the requirements, generating
tons of paperwork manually, having people review it, do risk assessments.
(10:11):
But it's a way of making sure when you're big that you're
following all the laws and regulations, that you're not
incurring undue risk to your business, but it's insanely manual.
And the bigger you are, the more burdensome these processes get.
So you think large government agencies, financial institutions, utilities.
Um, what we've done is the I would say that doesn't really
(10:31):
work in a cloud native world that's moving at light speed.
Nobody has time to write this paper, much less read it.
Um, and so when you look at that, we thought
we'll move everything to compliance as code.
We'll make the paperwork update itself.
It'll be more real time.
We'll use AI and other things to just Make tons of labor and pain and
costs go away and improve the risk posture for businesses at the same time.
(10:56):
And so, uh, the biggest of the big companies
have found this approach very attractive.
So it's the same outcomes you would always get in
GRC, just done in a very modern and different way.
Uh, that has a strong business case, and
that's really been the engine for our growth.
I love that.
Tell me about how you incorporate AI.
I know that's such a hot button topic.
Recently, the government still can't keep up with any conversation
(11:19):
in that whatsoever, and it is, it is genuinely growing faster
than we can even talk about a regulation or cap on that.
How are you all incorporating and controlling your AI usage?
So, there's a couple things there.
One is that will continue to be the case.
So, Um, if you're familiar with Moore's Law, it's basically that
processing speed is, is sort of doubling, uh, every few years, and it's
(11:42):
an exponential, and humans don't do well with exponential equations.
They just go faster than human brains can keep up with.
So, at some point, the thing gets its own momentum.
Uh, where we're at today is we're not on the fear
mongering side of it's just going to take everybody's job.
What we're trying to do is supercharge people, where, um, you might
have 10 people's worth of work, but you can only afford two of them.
(12:05):
There's these massive backlogs.
You can only afford three.
How do we make each one of those people perform like five people?
That's where AI can really help.
Um, so it gets out of these stare and compare exercises that happen in audits.
It can do a lot of that work for you.
Bring the information to the human who can make the right
risk based decisions, but get them out of doing a lot of
(12:25):
the low value work that it takes to get to that point.
And so what we're trying to do is improve quality of life for the
humans, get more work out of them for the same amount of input.
Um, and sort of supercharged humans.
So at some point, it will get good enough in the future where you may not
need as many humans in some of these areas, but it's not to that point yet.
(12:46):
I love that you say supercharged humans.
I think that should be your slogan.
RegScale, we supercharge humans.
All right, tell us a little bit about you as a person.
And we've got about 12 minutes left in this conversation.
So let's really flip the scales to who you are, who your family is.
Like, what do you find relevant in the Knoxville market as far as
(13:09):
bringing your business here and what has made you decide to stay?
So, uh, married with two kids.
So my, my wife, Beth is a real estate agent.
So when you talk about the, uh, people who are
relocating to Knoxville, she's a buyer's agent.
She's been one of the top ones in Knoxville
for years over at Slime and Real Estate.
And so the more people who are relocating the better.
(13:31):
So yeah, so Beth is my wife.
Um, and then we've got our two girls, Taylor and
Sarah Beth, they go to Concord Christian School.
And so we like, uh, the, the family values.
So, uh, we got her kids in a private Christian school.
We like the business climate.
Um, her, her family's close, so we got access to convenient babysitting.
(13:52):
And so for me, I'm a nerd.
I just like to code and play video games and other, other things.
Uh, my wife is more fun than me, so she's the
one who likes to, to travel and do other stuff.
Uh, but, uh, uh, day to day, mostly like working, building the business.
That's it.
I'm a crappy golfer, so if I get a chance to go out
and play golf, I enjoy it, and that's about it for me.
(14:15):
What growth opportunities do you see for younger people to be able
to want to stay and live and raise a family in the Knoxville market?
I think it's better than ever.
So, uh, in the past, sort of pre COVID, some of the top tech jobs
and other things, if you wanted that career, you had to move away.
And so, uh, there wasn't really any option
(14:36):
to pursue the top careers in those fields.
and live in Knoxville.
Post-COVID, workforces are getting increasingly
more distributed where you can work from anywhere.
We all live on Teams and Zoom and other things and so what they found
is they can get cheaper labor in some of these places that aren't
San Francisco and get the same level of productivity out of them.
(14:59):
So the opportunity to be able to do those things is greater.
Also, Knoxville itself is booming, uh,
economically, uh, the number of jobs moving.
Not just the high tech on our side, but manufacturing jobs, other things.
So the ability to find work here, I think it is on the other side
where we're, um, uh, we're constrained as employers to find enough
(15:21):
talent because there's so many jobs being created right now.
And so that's also why you see so many people moving here.
Because that's not true everywhere.
Lots of places are shrinking.
Other places are rising.
You know, it takes a while for those trends to happen.
But if you look from here to Chattanooga to Nashville, Tennessee's
done a great job of creating very friendly business climates.
(15:43):
And, uh, you can see it from Oracle, the new Ford factory.
Just across the state, Tennessee's just been booming.
Yeah, Tennessee's definitely changed quite a bit over the last decade.
Nashville has tripled in capacity.
Chattanooga has doubled.
I anticipate Knoxville will do the same in the next five to six years.
So we are always keeping an eye out on how to
(16:04):
maintain a conversation with the younger generation.
We have a lot of different possibilities for growth and opportunity and
jobs, not necessarily Uh, a conversation in Knoxville to keep them here.
We are definitely no Nashville or Austin as
far as the ability to provide things to do.
Um, I feel like we're growing in that arena
(16:25):
and shifting the conversation over to that.
What are some of your favorite things to do in Knoxville when people visit you?
What is your hidden gem, I guess you could
say, as far as a tour goes or a suggestion box?
I like the lake.
I love being on the water.
There's lots of lakes here, so if you're
into lakes and boating, lots of opportunity.
The Smoky Mountains here.
(16:46):
We like to go to Dancing Bear up, uh, into the Smokies.
I think that's fun.
That's one of the best places to eat in all of Tennessee.
Amazing food, amazing service up there.
Nice quiet little place to get a lodge.
They got a little coffee place at the bottom.
So like, we like to get away for weekends up to Dancing Bear periodically.
(17:06):
So that's, I think, one of the hidden gems.
My wife loves to tailgate at UT football games, so that
never gets old, and we're good again, which is a lot of fun.
And then there's a lot of good places to eat
now downtown, from Gay Street to the Old City.
We have like three or four places I really enjoyed.
I'm a foodie.
I like to travel and go to high end.
Restaurants and other things.
(17:27):
We just didn't have a lot of that, but there's probably
seven, eight solid spots downtown that are as good as
anywhere you'll find in Nashville or one of those places.
So we don't have the music scene or the big, uh, some of the bigger
amenities that Nashville has, but it is a great place to raise a family.
There's plenty to do here.
And if you like the outdoors, there's a lot to do here.
(17:48):
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
And South Knoxville being so close to the mountains and having access
to hundreds of acres of protected land makes it a very hikable,
bikable, family oriented place, as well as a high end restaurant place.
Well, definitely has a lot of food and entertainment.
So Travis, wrapping this up, tell us a little bit about, again, just go through
(18:09):
what it is that your company RegScale provides, does, and kind of pitch it.
Hey, listen, while you're out there, visit blank, you know, tell people where
they can find your company and apply for these amazing career opportunities.
Because what you're doing for Knoxville is
huge, and I think people really need to know.
So if you go to regscale.com and click the
careers, you can always see the open jobs.
(18:29):
We are growing and constantly hiring, so
we're looking for the best and brightest.
And so if you're interested in an entrepreneurial experience, we'd encourage
you to apply for any of those jobs that seem like they might fit your skill set.
If you're struggling with risk and compliance challenges, and you're
sick of writing paperwork that nobody wants to read and nobody wants
to write, And you're looking for a better answer, come check us out.
(18:51):
Uh, we might be able to help solve some of your problems.
Uh, and if you're just new to the area and you
want to get connected in business, reach out to us.
We can plug you into ETAC and, uh, the Knoxville, uh,
Entrepreneurial Center and KTAC, the Knoxville Technology Council.
There's a lot of things going on and ways to get connected in the community.
(19:12):
So if you're new to the community, you want to get involved,
want to get connected, We're happy to connect you up as well.
I love that so much, Travis.
Thank you so much for being a guest today.
Everybody, listen up.
We have such an amazing, dynamic year planned ahead for our interviewees.
Stay tuned for the next episode of Connect to the Knox.
I'm Julia Hurley, your host, connecting Knoxville to the nation.
(19:36):
Until next time.
Thank you for tuning into the show.
Make sure to like and subscribe.
Leave a five star review on your podcast player of choice.
And if you would like information on moving
to Knoxville, send me a private message.
As always, this is Julia Hurley connecting Knoxville to the nation.
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Connect the Knox.
I'm Julia Hurley, your host for the show, Connecting Knoxville to the Nation.
Today's guest is Travis Howerton, local entrepreneur, CEO, and
founder of a massive tech company that protects Some of the world's
(00:26):
biggest secrets over at ORNL and some pretty big places like that.
Travis, please introduce yourself to our group of people across
the nation that tune into our podcast and thank you for being here.
So I'm Travis Howerton.
Uh, as you mentioned, I'm one of the co founders and the CEO at RankScale.
I spent 20 plus years in U.
S.
national security.
(00:47):
Um, I retired as the first Chief Technology Officer of the U.
S.
Nuclear Weapons Program, went over to Oak Ridge National Lab and
ran their IT Service Division for a couple years, and then, uh, led
digital transformation globally for Bechtel, uh, for a few years.
Uh, now, everywhere we went, we kind of found that compliance
processes kind of slowed everything down in these large organizations.
(01:10):
And we got frustrated enough that we decided to do something about it.
And we, we, uh, built a company that's automating
many of these risk and compliance challenges that help
the largest companies in the world innovate faster.
That's a lot.
I don't, I may or may not have seen you.
I'm not sure.
Were you at the NOW conference?
I've been to the ServiceNow conference in the past, but not, uh, recently.
(01:33):
Or are you talking about the Nuclear Opportunities Workshop?
Yeah, Nuclear Opportunities Workshop.
I actually attended this year.
Oh, unfortunately I wasn't able to make it this year.
I was at, uh, the Department of Energy CyberCon conference.
But I have attended in the past, and
Of course, the DOE has their own cyber call in conference.
That's amazing!
Yep, and uh, but I am a proud member of ETEC for many years, so we
(01:55):
do generally try to support economic development in East Tennessee.
I love it.
Okay, so for everybody out there, we have
so many people that tune into this podcast.
One, because a lot of people relocate to the Knoxville, Tennessee area.
East Tennessee is very ripe for relocations.
We're using a lot of acronyms.
Let's throw that out there and kind of and help people understand
(02:17):
one, what we're talking about and two, what that means for them.
What it means for Knoxville is that it's, uh,
we're becoming more of an entrepreneurial city.
And so when you think of traditional venture capital, you think
of San Francisco and Austin and Boston and these big mega hubs.
We were able to raise a very large Series A round, uh, at a very atypical place.
(02:39):
And so what's changing in the world post COVID is the
money's not always isolated in these centers now, which
opens up investment in, uh, new areas like Knoxville.
And what makes Knoxville interesting is you've got
a strong university in the University of Tennessee.
You've got cheap power in TVA.
You've got a lot of entrepreneurial talent at Oak Ridge National Lab.
(03:00):
And you put all those things together with a very friendly
business climate and a very, uh, relatively low cost
of living relative to those other hubs I mentioned.
And it starts to become a very attractive place for outside investment, which
helps grow businesses, which helps attract more of those people to Knoxville.
Yes, I so agree.
And eTech is something that I've been in and out
(03:22):
of, I would say for the better part of now 12 years.
I remember ETEC when their coffee is actually started at 5 30 a.
m.
I know they've gone to 7 30 a.
m.
So it's been a minute.
But for those out there that don't know, ETEC, East Tennessee Economic
Council, and we have the TEC Corridor between Oak Ridge and Knoxville,
Oak Ridge National Lab, Bechtel, which used to be Bechtel Jacobs.
(03:43):
Y12, K25.
We have, what is that new company that just got
Bill Gates to invest in the Knoxville market?
Is it Kairos Power?
Oh no, but they're new as well.
They were at the NOW conference and they're talking about
Trillium mining and bringing like a gram of Trillium here
that can power almost an entire city on one gram of Trillium.
(04:05):
We are definitely becoming a hub for clean energy investment.
Uh, especially with their background and expertise in nuclear.
So if you read some of Bill Gates books, who most people
would not describe him as a staunch Republican, right?
But uh, he, he is big on nuclear being the only answer to climate change
in any reasonable amount of time that is cost effective in any way.
(04:29):
So you see in all these really high tech clean energy
nuclear companies that make safe nuclear reactors.
And so when you think nuclear, most people think scary, Chernobyl, Oppenheimer
movie, all those sorts of bad images come to mind, but these are microreactors.
They're very small.
They're inherently safe and they put off no
(04:52):
fossil fuels or anything bad for the environment.
So it's You Exciting.
So if you look at the capabilities we have at Y 12 and ORNL, the capability we
have at TVA, and then the money coming from the governor's office to accelerate
nuclear, it's an exciting time to be doing nuclear things in East Tennessee.
It really is.
So tell everybody out there how you are
encompassing all of that into your company.
(05:13):
So we just want to be part of the ecosystem.
So we're big on rising tides, float all boats.
And so you just want to create opportunities.
So whether it's in engineering and nuclear, For us, we're a
high tech, uh, sort of traditional San Francisco style startup.
So you want to be in high tech and cyber,
there's going to be options in Knoxville now.
(05:34):
And so it's, uh, I never thought living in Tennessee that this opportunity
would be available to me that we could raise this kind of money.
We could build a big company, uh, like you would in San
Francisco or Austin, that you could do that in Knoxville.
But we're hoping to set a blueprint for it, um,
so that others can follow and do the same things.
(05:55):
Uh, but it's, it's exciting.
There's a lot of opportunity for new jobs.
We've got a bunch posted now.
Um, and so it's creating jobs.
People are relocating to Knoxville to be part of RegScale
and we hope as we grow that more and more of that happens.
We're excited for you.
I love to learn all about the new businesses coming to the Knoxville market.
It's one of the best things about this podcast.
We get to announce local people who own local things, who
(06:18):
globally and nationally make a difference in this market.
So that's huge.
You live in Oak Ridge, you went to Oak Ridge, tell us about you as a person.
So I live in Oak Ridge.
So I worked in the Department of Energy, which their hub is here in Oak Ridge.
So I've lived here since.
2010, I grew up in Knoxville, went to Central High School, got my first degree
(06:38):
at Pellissippi State, then went to Tuscaloosa College, got my master's at
Boston University, spent a little time at headquarters at DOE in Washington, D.
C., but Pretty much have always maintained a residence here in East Tennessee,
but currently live out of Oak Ridge, love it here, work out of Cherokee Farms.
So, we put our office in the new research park just across from the
(07:01):
hospital on the water there at the UT campus, which is a beautiful
location, gives us great access to the brightest students on campus
as a recruiting pipeline and we've really enjoyed it out there.
So let's talk about that.
What do you look for as far as maybe interns or recruitment?
I know, uh, and many people I'm sure assume if they don't know that you
do have to have some special clearances to be able to work in the career
(07:23):
that you're working in, especially with the companies that you work with.
What does that process look like for maybe a student looking for
that opportunity maybe to be in engineering or nuclear energy?
Or something along the lines that you would want them
as an intern, or possibly as a hire in the future.
Yeah, so at RegScale, our R& D office is in Knoxville, so we're looking for the
(07:45):
best and brightest computer scientists, uh, software engineers, data scientists.
Um, uh, who want to work in high tech entrepreneurial sort of environment.
They don't want the traditional corporate ladder.
If they'd like to get on the ground floor of something, build it, have
more of a creative entrepreneurial spirit is kind of what we look for here.
(08:05):
Um, we recruit nationally for our marketing sales, other sorts of
opportunities, but in general, all of our R& D is local here in Knoxville.
Uh, it does, we, as you mentioned, we do national security
work for the Department of Defense and other places,
so it does come with expectations of clean living.
So, you know, you can pass a drug test, uh, and those sorts of
(08:26):
things, uh, nothing unsavory in your background, but if you can meet
those requirements and you enjoy engineering on complex problems.
Um, uh, there's opportunities at Rexco.
We all know that real estate is location, location, location.
Our team at Just Homes Group has the true expertise,
(08:47):
pairing buyers and sellers with the right opportunities.
Whether you're looking to buy or sell a home right here
in Knoxville, Lenoir City, Clinton, or Farragut, we have
the expertise throughout every Knoxville surrounding area.
Call Just Homes Group today.
(09:07):
I love that.
I love that so much.
So tell us about the next year of your growth plan.
Where would you, where are you on target to be?
What are your future plans and where would
you like to be in the Knoxville market?
So over the next year we plan to continue growth.
We're growing rather rapidly now, so we've raised our Series A.
So in the next year or so, somewhere in that
(09:29):
time frame, we'd like to raise a Series B.
At that point, we should probably double in size or so.
So that'll be the next huge tranche of growth for us as we
go try to capture this continuous controls monitoring market.
But that's the trajectory we're on.
We're still a hyper growth company and looking to continue on that track.
(09:50):
Tell me what you mean by continuous controls.
So, in the past, big companies would buy these tools called GRC tools,
Governance, Risk, and Compliance, and basically it's a way of looking at
what you're doing, making sure you're meeting the requirements, generating
tons of paperwork manually, having people review it, do risk assessments.
(10:11):
But it's a way of making sure when you're big that you're
following all the laws and regulations, that you're not
incurring undue risk to your business, but it's insanely manual.
And the bigger you are, the more burdensome these processes get.
So you think large government agencies, financial institutions, utilities.
Um, what we've done is the I would say that doesn't really
(10:31):
work in a cloud native world that's moving at light speed.
Nobody has time to write this paper, much less read it.
Um, and so when you look at that, we thought
we'll move everything to compliance as code.
We'll make the paperwork update itself.
It'll be more real time.
We'll use AI and other things to just Make tons of labor and pain and
costs go away and improve the risk posture for businesses at the same time.
(10:56):
And so, uh, the biggest of the big companies
have found this approach very attractive.
So it's the same outcomes you would always get in
GRC, just done in a very modern and different way.
Uh, that has a strong business case, and
that's really been the engine for our growth.
I love that.
Tell me about how you incorporate AI.
I know that's such a hot button topic.
Recently, the government still can't keep up with any conversation
(11:19):
in that whatsoever, and it is, it is genuinely growing faster
than we can even talk about a regulation or cap on that.
How are you all incorporating and controlling your AI usage?
So, there's a couple things there.
One is that will continue to be the case.
So, Um, if you're familiar with Moore's Law, it's basically that
processing speed is, is sort of doubling, uh, every few years, and it's
(11:42):
an exponential, and humans don't do well with exponential equations.
They just go faster than human brains can keep up with.
So, at some point, the thing gets its own momentum.
Uh, where we're at today is we're not on the fear
mongering side of it's just going to take everybody's job.
What we're trying to do is supercharge people, where, um, you might
have 10 people's worth of work, but you can only afford two of them.
(12:05):
There's these massive backlogs.
You can only afford three.
How do we make each one of those people perform like five people?
That's where AI can really help.
Um, so it gets out of these stare and compare exercises that happen in audits.
It can do a lot of that work for you.
Bring the information to the human who can make the right
risk based decisions, but get them out of doing a lot of
(12:25):
the low value work that it takes to get to that point.
And so what we're trying to do is improve quality of life for the
humans, get more work out of them for the same amount of input.
Um, and sort of supercharged humans.
So at some point, it will get good enough in the future where you may not
need as many humans in some of these areas, but it's not to that point yet.
(12:46):
I love that you say supercharged humans.
I think that should be your slogan.
RegScale, we supercharge humans.
All right, tell us a little bit about you as a person.
And we've got about 12 minutes left in this conversation.
So let's really flip the scales to who you are, who your family is.
Like, what do you find relevant in the Knoxville market as far as
(13:09):
bringing your business here and what has made you decide to stay?
So, uh, married with two kids.
So my, my wife, Beth is a real estate agent.
So when you talk about the, uh, people who are
relocating to Knoxville, she's a buyer's agent.
She's been one of the top ones in Knoxville
for years over at Slime and Real Estate.
And so the more people who are relocating the better.
(13:31):
So yeah, so Beth is my wife.
Um, and then we've got our two girls, Taylor and
Sarah Beth, they go to Concord Christian School.
And so we like, uh, the, the family values.
So, uh, we got her kids in a private Christian school.
We like the business climate.
Um, her, her family's close, so we got access to convenient babysitting.
(13:52):
And so for me, I'm a nerd.
I just like to code and play video games and other, other things.
Uh, my wife is more fun than me, so she's the
one who likes to, to travel and do other stuff.
Uh, but, uh, uh, day to day, mostly like working, building the business.
That's it.
I'm a crappy golfer, so if I get a chance to go out
and play golf, I enjoy it, and that's about it for me.
(14:15):
What growth opportunities do you see for younger people to be able
to want to stay and live and raise a family in the Knoxville market?
I think it's better than ever.
So, uh, in the past, sort of pre COVID, some of the top tech jobs
and other things, if you wanted that career, you had to move away.
And so, uh, there wasn't really any option
(14:36):
to pursue the top careers in those fields.
and live in Knoxville.
Post-COVID, workforces are getting increasingly
more distributed where you can work from anywhere.
We all live on Teams and Zoom and other things and so what they found
is they can get cheaper labor in some of these places that aren't
San Francisco and get the same level of productivity out of them.
(14:59):
So the opportunity to be able to do those things is greater.
Also, Knoxville itself is booming, uh,
economically, uh, the number of jobs moving.
Not just the high tech on our side, but manufacturing jobs, other things.
So the ability to find work here, I think it is on the other side
where we're, um, uh, we're constrained as employers to find enough
(15:21):
talent because there's so many jobs being created right now.
And so that's also why you see so many people moving here.
Because that's not true everywhere.
Lots of places are shrinking.
Other places are rising.
You know, it takes a while for those trends to happen.
But if you look from here to Chattanooga to Nashville, Tennessee's
done a great job of creating very friendly business climates.
(15:43):
And, uh, you can see it from Oracle, the new Ford factory.
Just across the state, Tennessee's just been booming.
Yeah, Tennessee's definitely changed quite a bit over the last decade.
Nashville has tripled in capacity.
Chattanooga has doubled.
I anticipate Knoxville will do the same in the next five to six years.
So we are always keeping an eye out on how to
(16:04):
maintain a conversation with the younger generation.
We have a lot of different possibilities for growth and opportunity and
jobs, not necessarily Uh, a conversation in Knoxville to keep them here.
We are definitely no Nashville or Austin as
far as the ability to provide things to do.
Um, I feel like we're growing in that arena
(16:25):
and shifting the conversation over to that.
What are some of your favorite things to do in Knoxville when people visit you?
What is your hidden gem, I guess you could
say, as far as a tour goes or a suggestion box?
I like the lake.
I love being on the water.
There's lots of lakes here, so if you're
into lakes and boating, lots of opportunity.
The Smoky Mountains here.
(16:46):
We like to go to Dancing Bear up, uh, into the Smokies.
I think that's fun.
That's one of the best places to eat in all of Tennessee.
Amazing food, amazing service up there.
Nice quiet little place to get a lodge.
They got a little coffee place at the bottom.
So like, we like to get away for weekends up to Dancing Bear periodically.
(17:06):
So that's, I think, one of the hidden gems.
My wife loves to tailgate at UT football games, so that
never gets old, and we're good again, which is a lot of fun.
And then there's a lot of good places to eat
now downtown, from Gay Street to the Old City.
We have like three or four places I really enjoyed.
I'm a foodie.
I like to travel and go to high end.
Restaurants and other things.
(17:27):
We just didn't have a lot of that, but there's probably
seven, eight solid spots downtown that are as good as
anywhere you'll find in Nashville or one of those places.
So we don't have the music scene or the big, uh, some of the bigger
amenities that Nashville has, but it is a great place to raise a family.
There's plenty to do here.
And if you like the outdoors, there's a lot to do here.
(17:48):
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
And South Knoxville being so close to the mountains and having access
to hundreds of acres of protected land makes it a very hikable,
bikable, family oriented place, as well as a high end restaurant place.
Well, definitely has a lot of food and entertainment.
So Travis, wrapping this up, tell us a little bit about, again, just go through
(18:09):
what it is that your company RegScale provides, does, and kind of pitch it.
Hey, listen, while you're out there, visit blank, you know, tell people where
they can find your company and apply for these amazing career opportunities.
Because what you're doing for Knoxville is
huge, and I think people really need to know.
So if you go to regscale.com and click the
careers, you can always see the open jobs.
(18:29):
We are growing and constantly hiring, so
we're looking for the best and brightest.
And so if you're interested in an entrepreneurial experience, we'd encourage
you to apply for any of those jobs that seem like they might fit your skill set.
If you're struggling with risk and compliance challenges, and you're
sick of writing paperwork that nobody wants to read and nobody wants
to write, And you're looking for a better answer, come check us out.
(18:51):
Uh, we might be able to help solve some of your problems.
Uh, and if you're just new to the area and you
want to get connected in business, reach out to us.
We can plug you into ETAC and, uh, the Knoxville, uh,
Entrepreneurial Center and KTAC, the Knoxville Technology Council.
There's a lot of things going on and ways to get connected in the community.
(19:12):
So if you're new to the community, you want to get involved,
want to get connected, We're happy to connect you up as well.
I love that so much, Travis.
Thank you so much for being a guest today.
Everybody, listen up.
We have such an amazing, dynamic year planned ahead for our interviewees.
Stay tuned for the next episode of Connect to the Knox.
I'm Julia Hurley, your host, connecting Knoxville to the nation.
(19:36):
Until next time.
Thank you for tuning into the show.
Make sure to like and subscribe.
Leave a five star review on your podcast player of choice.
And if you would like information on moving
to Knoxville, send me a private message.
As always, this is Julia Hurley connecting Knoxville to the nation.
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