February 13, 2025 • 45 mins
What if high school wasn't just about textbooks and tests, but about real-world business experience, industry mentorship, and innovation?
That’s exactly what Jeremy Qualls, Director of the Entrepreneur & Innovation Center (EIC) in Williamson County, has built—a game-changing educational model that prepares students for success in entrepreneurship and beyond.
In this episode, we explore:
✅ How the EIC selects and mentors students with a Shark Tank-style challenge
✅ Why failure is a critical teacher—and how embracing it fuels resilience
✅ The future of vocational training, industry partnerships, and hands-on learning
✅ The impact of mentorship, leadership, and assembling high-performing teams
From reshaping education to discussing entrepreneurial grit, innovation, and the power of learning from failure, this episode is packed with insights you don’t want to miss. 🎧
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🎙️ Williamson Co EIC: Website
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are the cap for whatever goes on in your store,
in your company, in yourdistrict, in your household.
However excited you are, whatyou believe is possible,
whatever that threshold is.
Hey team, jim Cripps here withthe Charge Forward podcast,
(00:23):
coming to you from HitLabStudios here in Nashville,
tennessee.
Now I've got a special guestfor you today.
He is the executive director ofthe EIC in Williamson County.
He's a longtime entrepreneur.
He is just a dedicated familyman as well as a lifelong
educator.
Welcome, mr Jeremy Qualls.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to be here.
I hope that your viewers don'tturn us off in the first 30
seconds because I may not.
You know the lifelong educationpiece, but I hope I have some
things and some nuggets here forpeople to take back.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Absolutely.
I find what you do there justthe spirit of the EIC, and
before we met I had no idea thatthat even existed, that it was
even a thing.
So that's the Entrepreneur andInnovation Center in Williamson
County, correct?
That is correct, yes, and whatis the spirit of it?
I know it's 9th through 12thgrade, but it's not like normal
(01:14):
school.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
It's not like normal school at all.
If you're a Williamson Countyparent and you're part of the
Williamson County school system,let me make sure we're up front
and clear about that.
This is a Williamson CountySchool System.
Let me make sure we're up frontand clear about that.
This is a Williamson CountySchool System program, so you
have to be enrolled in one ofthe ten high schools and it
started six years ago.
It's on the campus of FranklinHigh School in the old Annex
building.
It used to be the vocationalbuilding at one point in time 40
(01:38):
years ago and then after thatit was retroed for Columbia
State.
Columbia State CommunityCollege was in there for 15 plus
years and then, when they builttheir new campus, we got it
back.
Dr Mike Looney and some peoplewent on a trip to Denver,
colorado, saw thisentrepreneurial program in a
classroom and they were tryingto make a decision at that time
(02:00):
what are we going to do withthis space, what are we going to
do with this building?
So he went back.
He said I know exactly and I'mso thankful for his vision on
this that him and some otherfolks got together and went back
retro this building and startedthe Entrepreneurship Innovation
Center, better known as the EIC.
What it is is a application andinterview process to even get in
.
We just don't take kids.
(02:21):
It started with 72 kids.
Now we have a waiting list ofover 500 to even get in.
We have an enrollment roughlyof 280, 275 to 280.
That is the sweet spot for us.
We have four teachers there.
We don't even call themteachers, they are facilitators.
I mean, the kids come in and toshow you the power of the
(02:42):
program, our very first class isduring what we call zero period
.
It starts at 7 o'clock.
That's an hour before any ofour schools start and it's one
of the first that our kids goand take and fill up.
Because you've got athletesthat have after school or during
school things they have to do.
You've got AP honor studentsthat have a full slate of
classes that they can't reallyjuggle around to even be at the
(03:05):
EIC.
To be at the EIC you have tohave two free periods.
You have to give up a studyhall or lunch for travel time
and then obviously the classroomtime that you have, and we see
kids every day.
But anyway, that zero period,that's a testament to how
powerful the program is.
We've got kids that are comingan hour before school to take
this class, yeah, and we providetransportation in the middle of
the day for those that cannotdrive.
(03:26):
And then when they get there,it is literally you've seen the
space, it's an open collab space.
It's not like any school.
We make sure our saying is itdoesn't smell like school, it
doesn't look like school and itdoesn't taste like school.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
No, not at all.
And you know, the thing that Ifound really interesting there
is, you know, the I think it'scalled the right thing with the
collab space, because you've gotall these young minds that are
really again, like you said, notreally teachers, because
they're really just trying toguide and answer questions,
(04:01):
because their minds are the onesthat are like oh well, what if
I want to do this, and how do Iget through that?
And and that type ofenvironment.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
What separates us from any other business
marketing fill in the blankclass in any given high school
across America is the fact thatwe've got 150 mentors built into
this, baked into this, that arefrom the private sector, that
come in, that volunteer theirtime.
We have a dedicated day monthlyfor those mentors to come in.
You know, if a mentor only has30 minutes, that's great.
(04:34):
Sign up for a 30-minute block.
We got you, you're in and out.
Most people say that and theylook up and they've been there
for eight hours a day.
But what they do is we playspeed dating right, we us today.
But but what they do is we playspeed dating right.
We get them out there.
The kids go around, they havethree minutes to put their pitch
on them and those mentors saythat's a great idea.
Well, that's a terrible idea.
And hey, have you ever thoughtabout this?
Hey, I know somebody over herethat I can get you connected
(04:57):
with.
That'll help you.
You know, it's just one ofthose things.
It's a pay it forward deal andthey're so passionate about it
that what happens is six monthsinto this process, they start
latching on to groups.
The next thing, you knowthey're, they're fully invested,
you know with those groups andpushing them forward and hoping
they get launched and hopingthey make it into the finals of
our shark tank process wherethere's actual cash, actual seed
(05:19):
funding up for grabs.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, well, and I think it's that, um, you know,
if I'm, if I'm coming insomewhere and I'm speaking to a
group, there are groups thatthat you're giving energy to and
they don't give you energy back.
What I see at the EIC is peopleget energy while they're giving
energy because they see thelight bulbs clicking, they see
(05:43):
the things going off in thesekids' heads, and then when they
come back, they see what they'vealready done, because we get
used to, we give energy orenergy, or information,
suggestions, et cetera, and thepeople don't do anything with
them and they're like sponges.
They're just hoping somebodyfeeds into them so that they can
(06:03):
get where they're trying to gofaster.
So you come back and you seewhat they've done with what you
gave them and then you're moreexcited to give again.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That's a very astute point.
I know you've been there andyou've seen it.
You can feel the energy in thebuilding.
Oh yeah, now there's somethingI want to remind everybody.
Even though we're a publicschool system, they're choosing
to be there, they're wanting tobe there.
So the type of quality ofstudent that we have is is off
the charts, right, number one.
They're eager, they're they'rewilling to learn, they're
(06:32):
ambitious, they're all of thosethings self-disciplined,
hardworking.
So I think what really happensis the feedback that we get from
the adults that are.
The mentors are like I had apreconceived notion about
today's youth.
You see the negativity, you seethe social media, you see all
the ignorance that's happeningin traps that people fall into.
But then when they come to thescene, they say these kids like
(06:53):
hey, I gave you three ideas andyou brought back seven.
That's unheard of right.
So it gives that energy backthat you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It does Well.
And I kind of liken it to yourtop athletes, because I loved
hiring athletes because they haddiscipline, they knew how to
get to be coached, they actuallyknew how they liked to be
coached, where so many peopledon't.
And I think this, the spirit ofthe EIC, is kind of in that
same light.
And these are not your averageeveryday kids or regardless of
(07:22):
their age kids or regardless oftheir age.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
You bring up another good point too, and I think that
in some form or fashion in mybrain, whether I'm choosing to
do so or not, I agree with youon the athletic piece.
Right.
My whole entire makeup,background, philosophies the way
I work.
Everything is dedicated to thecraft that we own.
For many, many hours in thebackyard when nobody was looking
(07:44):
right and mine was basketballToo bad.
Colby's not here because hewould talk about Millsaps
College.
I'm going to give him a shoutout for Millsaps, but there's a
lot of truth, because he talksabout it a ton, talking about
taking those athletes and howperseverance, adversity,
self-discipline, all thosethings craft the person that you
are, you know.
I never forget the first time Ibecame principal.
(08:04):
I that you are, I never forgetthe first time I became
principal.
I was 31 years old when Ibecame principal and I had been
a head coach head basketballcoach before that.
I was the youngest in the stateto become head coach at that
time.
I didn't need it, I didn'tdeserve it, but I got it.
And there was a reason why Igot it because I thought I was
going to take this team to thestate championship, because I
was so brilliant, such abrilliant mind at the age of,
(08:26):
you know, 23, 24, 25 years old,that I led my team to a five and
21 first year.
You know and and the humblingexperiences that.
Anyway, my point is, when I gotto become principal and the
fires coming down and things arehappening, I'd be like man, why
aren't you getting?
I was like this is, this isSunday school.
Man, you got to sit over thereas a 25 year old.
(08:47):
Try to get a bunch of 16, 17,18 year olds to do what you
asked them to do to put food onyour table, Cause if you do not
win, you're going to lose yourjob.
That's right, that's fire.
Yeah, this is playtime.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Well, and you bring it up.
Another good point there I lovethis conversation is you know,
so much today has been watereddown by us not keeping score, um
, about us not talking aboutsomebody won and somebody lost
and what you need to do, whatyou need to fix.
So that's one reason why I lovethe coaching aspect, the sports
aspect, those types of things,but it plays right into your
(09:21):
career.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Like it, it does.
And you know anything you dooutside of bowling, golf.
Even then there's a teamconcept at some point in time.
Uh, for me it was basketball.
So I mean, you can't hide youwhen there's five people on the
floor.
It's hard, it's hard to hideand if you're not any good and
they have to hide you, you'renot going to play, that's right.
So you have to continuallyfight for a spot, which is
(09:46):
something I love.
And then when you get into thereal world, it's like you said
people like, if they haven'tdone it, you can't.
It's hard to learn older, right,you have to go through that
trial by fire.
You have to understand you haveto lose.
You have to go five and twentyone in your first year to say,
hmm, what's the problem?
And then I went six and 20.
Hey, I improved a game.
(10:06):
And then I went seven wins thethird year and I thought, okay,
this is insanity, I haven'tchanged anything.
I keep thinking that theplayers are going to change,
they're going to change theoutcome.
But it was the coach the wholetime, it was me.
Until I learned that valuablelesson, I wouldn't be sitting
here with you today.
Yeah, yeah, and that's allbecause of failure.
So the first thing that weteach at the SE is fail often
(10:32):
and fail forward.
If you're not learning throughyour failures, it's insanity.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
You're doing the same thing over and over.
Yeah, absolutely Well, andagain, I think that's.
That's one of those thingsthat's lost in a lot of
households and I'm going to putthis back on the parents is
they're so quick to remove painfrom the situation that the kid
never learns how to deal with it, and so then that's where we
end up with 20-year-olds thatcan't hold a job or can't make
(10:58):
it through school because theycan't handle somebody holding
them accountable.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I think about this all the time.
As a father of three, I havefailed miserably.
I'm hoping by the third one, bythe time he gets old enough
that he can.
Maybe I have learned my lesson.
Like coaching right, nothinggets you ready for fatherhood.
My father told me all the waythrough one day, son, you'll
understand.
One day, son, you'll understand.
I'm like whatever.
And now I'm like.
(11:26):
He's so right.
Here we are and and I try toraise our children with failure
in mind.
Yeah, hey, it's okay to fail.
Okay, what'd we do wrong?
Now, as we go back, when youapproach this scenario again and
we have helicopter parents thisday that you know that just at
all costs comfort them andshield them from failures and
(11:46):
the teachable moments of that.
It's not fun.
Nobody wants to do itspecifically with athletics with
your own children.
Yeah, you know, do you livevicariously through your
children or do you back up andsay they're their own person?
Either they got to want itthemselves and if they fail, or
don't make the team.
There's lessons involved inthat.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Don't complain about your playing time.
What have you done to change it?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
That's right.
Well, and a lot of times it'sattitude and it's how they
adapted to that challenge,whether it was they missed the
shot, or I mean all the way downto you know, I love it when
Colby talks about him making thegoal or making a shot in the
wrong goal.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
He does that quite often.
Don't let him lie to you.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Right, right, you know, but if you don't learn to
recover from things, it's goingto be a tough life.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
It is that resilience factor is so overlooked a lot
of times and in fact you knowyou go back to the
entrepreneurship side.
So we have 150 mentors.
The vast majority of them aresome type of entrepreneur.
First question I always askwhen we get together as mentors
is like okay, how many of youare on your first business and
out of the 150 you might haveone hand go up?
Yeah, how many are on yoursecond business?
(12:58):
How many are in your thirdbusiness?
How many you get to five andsix?
That's when the hands startgoing up, yeah, and you start
thinking about the failure andthe lessons that are in that of
the iterations.
That is maybe their productthat evolved over those six
iterations, or they justcompletely pivoted altogether
because of the failures.
Yeah, they could have easilyquit.
(13:18):
They could have easily went andgot a nine to five job and felt
safe.
But boats aren't made to be inthat harbor.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Smooth seas don't make skillful sellers.
I mean, that's just the truth.
You got to get out there.
I wish kobe was here becausehe'd be rolling his eyes right
now, because he'd be, he'd bereferencing drucker or some kind
of.
You know, we call ourselvestown and country.
He's the, the city slicker thatlikes to talk in bumper
stickers, and I just get rednecklogic going right, right, it's
literally comes down to that,though.
Yeah, what do you do in thosefailures?
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah Well, I mean, cliches are cliches for a reason
.
I mean it's because they've beenused over and over and over Um
and it's because we don't havenew problems.
I mean, don't get me wrong AIand some things.
Obviously they're creating somenew dynamics, but you know a
lot of the problems that thatpeople go through growing up.
They're the same problems thathave been around a long, long
time.
(14:07):
You know how do you deal withfailure, how do you deal with
and you mentioned helicopterparents, but I think, and I
didn't know this was a thinguntil just maybe a year or two
ago, but they call themlawnmower parents that clear the
way so that the child neversees a problem.
It's terrible.
It's terrible.
You're stealing that.
You're stealing that.
You're stealing that from yourkid and their future and really
(14:28):
you're damaging your grandkids.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, we're going to come a time that this is going
to be, you know, you feel likeeverything is cyclical, that it
will come back around, I guessmaybe to the old golden days of
raising kids at the 50s and 60sand 70s and 80s, right, and I
don't know.
Man, it's really dishearteningto watch.
You know, being a coach, Idon't know that you could pay me
(14:52):
enough money to get back in thecoaching profession because
nobody's ever right.
Right, I mean no coach is everright, never, you know.
And then I followed up mycoaching gig after I got into
admin with the district athleticdirector of Williamson County,
which I was before the EIC,that's right.
And you know, for five years Ihad to ride hard over 320
(15:13):
coaches and 10,000 studentathletes in Williamson County.
Let's just say that every jobpast that is pretty much Sunday
school, because you know you'vegot highly ambitious people.
Nothing wrong with that.
But the high ambition sometimescomes with the blinders too.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Sometimes and that entitlement, that's not.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
The entitlement.
You know, hey, I'm paying $400a month for my kid to go to this
personal trainer.
I'm like you might want to saveyour money.
You know, I'm just going to behonest with you and I found that
when I had discussions withdisgruntled parents over
coaching and or their or playingtime or whatever, uh, sometimes
(15:58):
the more blunt you are, thefaster you get to that bluntness
to them, the faster thatconversation's over.
So then all of a sudden, I wentfrom well, let's talk about
this to you.
Know what I've been to?
That that's not true.
That's not accurate.
I've been to the practices,I've been to games.
Your kid just ain't good enoughto play on that.
Tell me who they're going toplay over and that's the end of
the, because they default backto, at some point in time, their
(16:20):
failures and they're going backto what you're saying.
They're trying to protect themfrom that failure.
So sometimes when you talk, youknow I just want to be
realistic.
It's what we do at DIC with thekids.
That is a bad idea.
Let me tell you why it's a badidea.
You're going to have to getthat created overseas.
They're going to have tariffsand you're going to have to get
(16:42):
that created overseas that aregoing to have tariffs and you're
going to have to go throughcustoms.
You don't have time for that,you don't have the
infrastructure for that, youdon't even have your business
license yet.
So let's back up.
If we don't have those fullconversations with those kids at
the USC, they're going to spendsix months on a frivolous
project and then wake up and saywhy didn't you tell me this in
the first six days?
No different with disgruntledpeople.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
The reality is, the faster you can get to the truth
with somebody.
Almost 100% of the time, that'show you serve them best.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
It's not fun.
It's not and it's not foreverybody.
It's not fun.
When I was coach, I usually hadto break down some of the kids.
I had a guy.
I love him to this day.
His nickname was Pappy TerryHudson, Lexington High School.
I love that guy.
I hope he watches this.
Be like Pap.
You got one job.
If you want to play, Do notshoot.
You're going to rebound.
The only time you can shoot isoff your own offensive rebound.
(17:29):
If you get an offensive rebound, put it back up.
Other than that, you get rid ofit.
He bought into that.
He became a great player.
His role was not to shoot In,Shoot.
In his mind.
When we first started, he was ascorer.
Pap, I hate to tell you buddy,yeah, you want to play.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Offensive rebounds.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Well, you know and I think this is fostered by social
media and then just all thedifferent things out there that
push sometimes people in thewrong ways.
I think it's Jack Daly thatsays that the average Little
League team is run better thanthe average business, and it's
because Little League playersknow their role.
If I'm shortstop, I know what Ido.
If I'm the pitcher, I know whatI do.
(18:09):
If I'm the catcher, I know whatI do.
And sometimes people areconfused as to what their role
is.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Well, biases haven't crept in yet.
Egos haven't quite gotten thereyet.
If you're on a winning teamRandy's team, right, oh yeah,
parents aren't going to besaying everybody wants to be a
part of a winner.
If you're on a losing team, theparents start to chatter and
they chatter in front of the kidand it just muddies it up.
But, like you said, yes, noneof that has.
(18:35):
The innocence is still there.
The wanting to please whomeveris still there, whether it be
your teammate and or your coach.
When you get older, that's whenthose biases creeped in.
When that happens, it's really,really difficult.
I think about that from talentdevelopment perspective.
We call our team the pirateship.
I want the best.
(18:56):
I'm going to go and I'm goingto steal and pirate every single
top talent I can get.
I'm not afraid of somebody.
I don't want to be the smartestin the room.
My father always said if youthink you're in your smartest
room, you go to a different room.
That's right.
There's a lot of truth in that.
I want to surround myself withpeople that won't not
necessarily this sounds, youknow.
This is when you start readingthose guru books.
(19:24):
Hire people that want to takeyour job.
Have enough confidence to hirepeople that are that can do your
job better.
Yeah, absolutely empower them,make them autonomous within a
structure and go forth andconquer yeah, well, and I think
that's.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
There's two different mindsets there.
A lot of people manage out of,they're trying to keep them in
their boxes, yes, and thenpeople that lead and I mean
truly lead lead people that arebetter than them.
They are constantly looking forthat talent that can take the
entire team to the next level,and then you're just guilty by
association.
I will tell you for I mean themajority of my career, I was not
(19:59):
the guy, but I knew the guybecause I hired him or the girl
Like I had experts in all typesof places that I had this much
knowledge.
I didn't need to be the expertin that field, I needed to have
them on my team and then letthem do their thing, like you
said, within the framework, sothat everybody was better
because of it.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I spent two weeks with my wife for our 20th
anniversary in New Zealand and Itold her when I was gone I was
like I'm not going to checkanything.
It's the first time in mycareer I think I've really
checked out of work.
I really did.
I mean, I could honestly say Ichecked out and I said you know
what, when I come back theydon't even need me anymore.
I said that group, I love ourteam, I love our team.
(20:42):
I mean it's just, I've puttogether some people that just
are unbelievable teammates, careabout each other just not from
a personal, I mean from a workstandpoint, but from a personal
standpoint, but they are.
They were diamonds in the rough.
I don't know, this is notself-serving, this is not
narcissistic.
I'm just saying I don't knowthis is.
This is not self-serving, thisis not narcissistic.
(21:02):
I'm just saying I don't have alot of quality.
I don't know what I have.
I'm all over the map.
But one thing that I think thatI do see, for whatever reason
that that guy gave me, was beable to see people and say,
either one, their con arson,their car salesman, or number
two, that person's got someunbelievable talent.
Oh yeah, and the team that Ihave.
(21:22):
It's just I'm so thankful forJen, chris and Paula and Kim and
all the people that we havebecause, as an example, chris,
who works with us, chris was ateacher at a high school, had
applied for severaladministration jobs, gotten
looked over, passed over, passedover, don't know why Foolish.
(21:45):
Now she could have any job inWisconsin as she wants, because
they see it now.
And when I started the Wilco's,which is our version of the
Espy's, when I was an athleticdirector, she was a soccer coach
, yeah, and she texted me Firstoff.
She hit me up First day I wastouring that building, never
even know who she was.
Came up, she said, hey, youknew the athletic director.
Yeah, we need lights on ourfield.
(22:06):
Hey, not, how are you doing?
I'm like now, who is thisNorthern Razor's Edge?
Right, so she goes through thisconversation.
And then we got to know eachother.
We're laughing.
She says hey, says hey, wereally do need light.
So I started looking into it.
Anyway, along the side, youknow, we get the uh wheelcoats
going.
She calls me.
She said, hey, I'm looking formore admin roles.
I want to help you fast forwardto the night that the the
(22:32):
wheelcoats.
After it's over.
Everybody's gone.
I send my wife home and I'm outthere in a tuxedo.
I take my the jacket off.
I'm rolling up carpets and thereshe is, in a dress, pregnant,
putting up rugs and didn't evenask her Got home.
I told my wife.
I was like if I ever get anopportunity, she's going to be
(22:54):
my number one hire.
Now she's assistant director.
I probably get in their way.
I just need to get out of theway and let them.
I mean, that's what I'm talkingabout, pirate, right?
People like well, you have aunique ability to hire.
No, it's not a unique ability,it's the confidence in people
and confidence in yourself thatI'm not worried to bring in the
(23:16):
right people on that are smarter, better, it's OK.
Yeah, because we're going tomake a cool team dynamic and
culture.
That's a non-negotiable and I'mgoing to let them soar.
I mean that's what we're hereto do.
I mean let them go.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
No, I believe almost exactly the same thing and for
years I looked at it as kind oftwo different ways.
One, I'm looking for puzzlepieces and you're looking for
that person that fits that role,that makes the whole thing come
together.
Or I also described it as likemisfit toys that were made for
this particular kid or for thisparticular scenario.
(23:49):
And you know, taking thosepeople that other people
overlook, foolishly overlook,because you're not willing to
ask what are they supposed to bedoing?
Like what do they want?
Like what's the bigger picturefor this person, and then
plugging them in, and I meanliterally, you look like a rock
star when it's really them.
You're just giving them a placeto shine.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
That's so accurate.
I learned this lesson from agood friend of mine and the
person that followed me intothat athletic directorship job,
a guy named Darren Joins.
He's a longtime basketballcoach, very close friend of mine
and a remarkable human, and Inever forget going to his
practices, going to his gamesand watching him and talking to
him constantly.
(24:29):
It's like, dude, you're lettingthat guy run practice.
He's like what's your point?
It's like you're the head coach.
I was falling back into that 5and 21,.
Jeremy, where it has to be me,the light has to be on me.
I got hired to do this, thisjob, because, my God, I deserve
it.
That's the old me.
And then I started watching andnext thing, you know, the
(24:51):
practices are so Well old.
And then you got the one-on-oneaspect of the teaching down to
the toe, down to that littleleague aspect that everybody's
bought into and all those peopleare working extremely hard and
he's sitting back and evaluating, watching and just moving
pieces around.
I was like that's smart.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Hire people that are talented, that are just as good
as you, and let them roll, yeah,and I mean, it's such a simple
concept, simple concept.
So I, I, I like to think I'mvery cautious now that when we
do have openings, that theculture and the team dynamic is
at all costs.
So it's not my decision.
We do everything as a team,everything.
(25:27):
Now I may have to veto and theyveto me, and that's fine and
that's part of that culture thatwe have internally, but it
works.
It doesn't necessarily work foreverybody, because you have to
be willing to let go of thereins and that's tough.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
You do, and you have to have the right people that
are willing to push back whenthey know that that's the wrong
thing, and that means thatyou've got to have fostered an
environment where they can speakup.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
It's not the wrong thing more so than it is.
What are we here fighting for?
Because that wrong thing can bemisconstrued, as Jim really
wants to do this, because it'sgoing to make Jim look good,
right, and that's not what we'redoing, that's right.
There's not a decision that'smade that's going to make Jeremy
look good, chris look good,paula look good.
It's saying what's best forthese kids and that's who we
serve.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I love it.
That's the mission.
That that's the mission.
That's the mission, and I meanthat's why you're so successful
at it.
And you guys, you just brokeground on some pretty amazing
stuff too.
If you will Give us a lookunder the hood on that, we did.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
We're so excited about this and anytime we get an
opportunity, thank you for that.
So Governor Lee, three yearsago allocated $500 million for
vocational training, skillseducation, right, tech.
We call it cte career andtechnical education and um, uh,
being the exec director not onlyof the ic but over the cte
(26:45):
world as well.
We have roughly 140 teachersacross 10 buildings, 30
something programs.
So when they dropped this, itwas like you had to modify the
way you teach, the time that youteach your partners that you
teach with and facilities.
So we started thinking what arewe going to do?
That's going to leave a legacywith this money.
(27:06):
So the formula was every highschool within your system gets a
million bucks.
Middle schools get $500,000.
You can pull.
That's the first verb, thefirst word, excuse me, that came
out of the mouths of the peoplethat were doing it and I was
going okay, pull the money.
That means, so I had to carrythe two.
Do this.
15 and a half million.
It's like, okay, that's cool,you can do something significant
(27:27):
.
Then they said you could build.
That's the only two words Iheard in the entire process Pull
and build, pull and build andLike I looked at my table of my
colleagues that are across thedistrict, the middle Tennessee
area.
You've got Metro Nashville,you've got Wilson County,
rutherford County, cheathamCounty, sumner County all of
them sitting at the table and Ilooked at it immediately.
I said we're going to build.
And they all looked at me likeyou're crazy.
(27:49):
I'm like we're going to build.
And then they said, well,there's going to be a 10% cap on
the building process.
So then I did the math and Iwas on 1.5.
Man, you can't do that.
So chris looked at me.
She said what are you gonna do?
How you gonna pull this off?
I said we're gonna request ameeting, we're gonna put a pitch
on them that they cannot turnus down on.
So we put together a deck, weget this idea together.
(28:10):
We started talking to people,kind of got a couple of
renderings.
It's like this is what it couldpotentially look like.
I'm'm thankful that we havesuch unbelievable partners in
the Williamson Inc.
Matt Large and his group, ceoof Williamson Inc, our chamber,
along with Rogers Anderson, themayor, got together and said hey
, we got an idea.
We need land.
Of course, land is at a premium, so if we'd have bought land,
(28:33):
it'd have eaten up most of the,you know, a third of the $15
million.
So there's a piece of landbeside the eic that used to be
the old dog kennel.
They've already built a new dogkennel, moved that facility out
.
That's been vacant for threeyears.
It's worthless piece ofproperty, honestly, because it
sits on franklin.
You know it's zoned, youcouldn't build anything and
(28:54):
mayor anderson said we're gonna,we're care of it, we're going
to give you that.
And I was like whoa, that wasawesome.
So that was step one.
Step two got on the phone, dida Zoom call with the
Commissioner of Education andeverybody that was over this
$500 million process and it wasthe GIVE grants, governor's
(29:15):
Initiative on VocationalEducation.
So we Innovative School, schoolmodels grant pardon me, I
assume that Gil came before that, I assume folks.
So we got on zoom call.
I said all right, here's what Iwant to do.
I said, just hear my pitch andy'all shoot us down or do
whatever.
But we got this thing.
Bam bam, bam.
We get to the end and they'relike this is exactly the spirit
(29:37):
of what this is.
I said why did you put a cap onit?
And they kind of laughed and Ithink they've backed up off the
cap.
But they, they gave me thegreen light.
So then we had to go back, wehad to work you know kind of
commission and everybody has toapprove for the funds to be
funneled.
And all that went through.
So we finally got to the point.
It's a four-year grant.
This is year three that wefinally got to break the ground
because you've gone through thearchitectural phase, engineering
(29:59):
phase.
We broke ground on December the3rd and they have to be done by
July of 26, july 1.
They said they'd get it done.
Bell Construction greatpartners, are doing the
construction.
So that's a long story.
To get to this point, what isthis building?
We're going to take the EICmodel and we're going to overlay
(30:19):
it.
In this building there's goingto be four worlds in the
building.
Let me add fifth.
Chris always gets mad because Iforget the fifth World one I
started talking about.
Part of the foundation of thisISM grant was you had to do
something with industry partners.
So I started peddling this topeople.
(30:40):
I got told no.
So many times I thought for aminute there I was like I'm
never going to find anybody.
I said I just need one to fallRight.
So I got with the CEO ofThompson Caterpillar sitting
here in Nashville, yep, andwithin 20 minutes he was like I
mean, what do you want us to do?
So they are sponsoring 5,000square feet in this facility.
It's going to be a ThompsonCaterpillar machine tech program
(31:03):
and it's going to be two forone.
One of them has never been donein the United States, which I'm
pretty excited about.
The other one has been done andwe're going to build upon it,
which is heavy machinetechnology.
So the kids are going to becoming in.
Another academic partner in thekids are going to be coming in.
Another academic partner inspace is going to be the
Tennessee Colleges of AppliedTechnology, which is better
known as TCAT.
So TCAT is going to provideteachers in there they're going
(31:30):
to get collegiate creditstowards an industry
certification while these kidsare going through high school
with Thompson Caterpillar inthere.
I mean it's going to be threebays, three ton cranes, modules
coming in.
They're bringing the drop in,the big engines in.
They're doing all of that, youknow, pneumatics, all of that
stuff which I think is extremelycool.
And then they're going to be.
Hopefully, if we do our jobs,by their senior year they'll be
down at the Caterpillar TechCenter right south of 840 on
(31:53):
Columbia Pike down there workingalongside Caterpillar
technicians, and then they'll beready to work.
That's great.
That's going on sites with atruck roughly $100,000 start,
yeah, zero.
College education.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Zero debt.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Zero debt Applied technology industry credentials
embedded.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
And it's good for the industry too.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
It's great.
The second one that theybrought upon us was hey, would
you be interested in energypower generation?
I was like, yeah, what's thatlook like?
Well, according to them Ididn't know this Thompson
Caterpillar is the largestprovider in the world of
generators generators.
(32:40):
So if you think about it, whena hotel, a hospital, a bank,
anything, the power goes down,they're either one or two, one
of three.
Genrac, kohler, thompson Capitaland Thompson Capital is the
biggest.
Right now.
They tell us they're working onthree to six generators that
have never been built before.
We're talking about abillion-dollar in contracts with
Elon and Tesla on their serverfarm that's being set up outside
(33:04):
of Memphis right now.
Oh wow.
So it has to run on aparticular humidity rate.
What they asked for TVA told mewhat they asked for out there
could run the entire state inkilowatts.
So it has to be a hybridprogram.
So they have to run half of itoff these generators, half of it
off the grid, and if anythinghappens to the grid, the
(33:25):
generator's got to pick up 100%.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
So they're building things that have never been
created before.
So our kids are going to getthe benefit of seeing this
process.
So if you want to become anelectrical engineer, this
program is going to be great.
So one thing this program isgoing to be great.
So one thing this building isgoing to do for us.
Our number one priority is tochange the thought process.
I've been reading this bookcalled Play Bigger.
You've got to read it.
It's awesome, talking aboutpirates, innovators and
(33:48):
entrepreneurs and how they playbigger.
Category kings is the numberone thing they talk about.
In category kings, you startthinking about who is a category
king?
Well, apple's a category king,uber's a category king, amazon's
a category king.
So you talk about what are we?
How can we become categorykings in education?
(34:08):
And this, to me, is how you doit.
It's not that you're solving aproblem.
You're solving a problem fasterand better than what's been
done before.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
You look at Uber.
Uber was a taxi company, but itbecame a tech company.
And the minute it became a techcompany, it changed the
category.
Right, and it changed how youinteracted with it Exactly and
even though you might have toget a lift, you still call it an
Uber, that's right.
Right, so the second place folkscan survive.
(34:39):
The third, fourth and beyondare all gobbled up, and guess
what happens to?
That goes back to my piratetheory on education and hiring
good people.
All the great people want towork, for whom?
The number one, the categorykey.
So you start thinking aboutthis from a votec standpoint of
not just having vocationalclasses in your classroom.
We've got a place where you cancome, you can work alongside an
industry partner that is usingtheir standards.
(35:01):
You're working along acollegiate program that's
actually the credentialing basefor the industry credential and
when I turn 18, I can go to workfor these people.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Well, even just the exposure, the exposure that
they're going to have Right Ismonumental.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
So let's say I go into this and I spend three
years of my high school career,I spend an hour a day and I
decide that's not what I want todo.
Why would you not do it on ourdime then later and being in
debt?
That's just.
That's just a small piece ofthe puzzle, all right.
So there's world one, world twocybersecurity, ai.
We are working on some deals.
(35:39):
Right now I can't mention ityet.
When I get it solidified, Ihope I get it solidified with a
blue chip company as well as auniversity that's very well
known that just started a NSAprogram with the.
NSA former chief.
So if I can get this deal done,there's some really cool
possibilities.
I got a lot of post-secondaryinstitutions circling this and
(35:59):
I've got to figure out who thebest partner is.
I think there's room for all.
But anyway, there's world two.
World three, I think, is a verycool one.
It's our number one requestedcte program, which is culinary,
believe it or not really we'vegot kids that we have to kick
out, we don't.
We just we can't put them in.
We're overfilled.
So what we're going to do iswe're not just going to do
(36:20):
culinary, because I think that'sa little bit one one
dimensional for our building.
I said let's make it a biggerand better thing.
So we're going to call ithospitality, hospitality and
tourism management.
So embedded in there you've gota hell's Kitchen-styled scratch
kitchen.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
That competitions can be had in there, nice, and then
you've got a mock hotel lobby,mock hotel room, mock hotel
bathrooms.
So we're going to learn frontof house, behind the house,
everything in between, how torun hotels, how to do culinary
programs.
We're going to mash that up.
I think what we're trying to dois going to run this building
net zero.
(36:59):
So how do we do that?
So, as a fundraising process,people can host a meeting there.
Our people will do all thelogistics.
I love it Right.
So for a small fee that goestowards the building, we're
trying to be net zero in thebuilding, sure, and so this is
really cool.
Our partners in that, justinFoster, who's general manager of
(37:21):
Harpeth Hotel, our five-starhotel in downtown Franklin We've
got Halifax Properties I mean,hitesh Patel and his family have
been unbelievable.
And then all this is going tobe mashed up.
We'll have more people come tothe table.
All those people that told meno to begin with will be like,
hey, how come y'all didn'tapproach us about this?
They'll forget once this thingis actually happening.
Oh yeah, I was trying to sellthem a pie in the sky.
It's hard to see it, but nowthat we got some movement they
(37:41):
were like, hey, how do I getinvolved?
But that's World 3.
World 4 is aviation privatepilot license.
We are working with HawkinsFlight Academy guys out of
Nolensville, not far down theroad from here.
Kids will actually be able tohave loggable hours towards
their private pilot license.
We're going to have full-movingsimulators in there.
(38:06):
Mtsu is our secondary partnerwith that.
They've got two routes.
You want to go to school andget your post-secondary degree
and then go to work for acommercial airline.
That's the route you can go.
If I just want to get a privatepilot license, we have a route
(38:27):
for that.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Well, the opportunities in being a pilot,
and I wasn't aware of this, butCOVID kind of created this
problem.
I wasn't aware of this, butCOVID kind of created this
problem.
And the problem was you hadpeople that weren't expected to
retire for another five to tenyears, that went ahead and said
I'm not dealing with all this,I'm retiring, and so there's
this gap.
(38:49):
And so whether we're talkingabout on the commercial side,
whether we're talking about onthe private side I mean, even I
didn't even know that this was athing there's people that have
that just fly dogs.
They literally they fly dogsfrom wherever in the United
States to their new owners.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
But it costs more money to fly dogs than it does
humans.
We don't bet.
Oh, I have no doubt.
No doubt.
Doug Crulon is the president ofthe Metropolitan Airport
Authority at B&A right.
Doug's a superhuman being.
He's another one of ourpartners he was just talking
about.
There's 12,500 badge holders,in other words, employees on the
(39:26):
grounds of B&A every day,12,500.
They move Nissan Stadium dailyof people and he's like we're
fixing to open up an additional.
I'm going to say this wrong.
This number's going to be wrong.
I think it's 20 million annual,going towards 40 million annual
when they open up everythingthey're building.
(39:47):
Wow.
So you think about that.
You think about the jobs thatare going to come with, not just
in the aviation process alone,from flying dogs to flying
humans, to flying or radiocontrol tower, it doesn't matter
, there are opportunities outthere.
The mechanical side on this ishuge too.
They can't find employees.
You know we're going to look atis there a crossover between
the Thompson Caterpillar processand maybe jets and whatnot, and
(40:09):
see what we can do.
But it's very interesting.
Our fifth world is we've strucka deal with the city of
Franklin, which I think is cool.
They're having a little bit ofa difficulty in hiring fire
employees.
So we're doing a fire sciencemanagement program in
conjunction with the city ofFranklin and their fire
(40:31):
department and our HR departmenthas lowered their age
requirements to get in from 21to 18.
So we're going to put themthrough this process.
They're going to man it,they're going to operate,
they're going to teach it.
They get to handpick sixinterns on the backside of that
and out of that six they'regoing to select who's going to
get employed.
(40:51):
I love it and I just think it'sreally cool.
It's not a lot of quantity,it's a smaller style, more niche
program, if you will.
But we've got data that says Ithink we have upwards to 300
that have the aptitude andinterest to be in that.
So we're going to make it sospecific that it's kind of like
(41:11):
the EIC you get selected,congratulations you're in.
Because we're only looking for12 to 14 a year anyways.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Well, and you're looking for the best.
You're looking for the onesthat are going into that, with
or without you, and they'redetermined.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
You know you can be debt-free.
They even have a collegereimbursement program to go into
FIRE.
You know they have a reallycool schedule for a single young
adult.
You know you go a couple dayshome, couple of days off.
It's pretty interesting how itis and if I was a single adult
that'd be something I'd look atand say you know, I need to get
a college degree for whateverreason we'll fall back on, I'd
go through the fire, let thempay for it.
(41:45):
And they say you know you mightwork up the ladder in the fire
department and they pay reallywell once you get going.
And even the intro pay rightnow on fire is higher than
teachers.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
So that's the world.
Now here's the cool thing.
I stole this from Purdue.
Purdue University came andtoured EIC and upon their
conversation I was asking themit's like hey, give me some
ideas.
We got this building coming.
I want those kids to not onlylearn the skills, but we got to
get business models embedded.
Yeah, if I want to open up myown aviation uh program or
(42:21):
whatever tutoring or a pilotlicensing program.
They may have the skill set,but they don't have the
knowledge of the business aspect.
So the guy's like here's whatwe do at purdue we overlay
inter-business studies, ibs iswhat it's called, and he's like
you know engineering, we'reengineering school engineering,
engineer engineer.
They get out, they know how tobuild xyz, but they don't know
how to run their own company.
So what we're going to do is,once they go through that,
they're going to have to walkacross the parking lot and take
(42:46):
a business class or anentrepreneurial class in the EIC
.
So we feel like that is theperfect storm.
We have yet to found anywhere.
You either have one or theother.
Like I said, we're not the onlyeic program in the country.
There's over 500 that that arein this silo with us, that run
the incubator edu program.
(43:06):
The reason we do the incubatoredu curriculum is it gives us an
opportunity to be and qualifyfor the national championships
in chic annually.
So our program has been aroundsix years, so we're relatively
young as compared to the rest.
Naperville suburb out ofChicago was the one that started
it.
Texas has been in it a longtime.
We're the pups.
(43:27):
We won the nationalchampionship in year five last
year and it tore some of them up.
I love it.
That's that competitive nature.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
I think you've got an opportunity to maybe get it
this year too.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
We do so last year.
I think if people are stilllistening and watching this and
say, okay, talk more about theEIC.
Here it is.
I'm going back to yourdiscipline.
Instead of talking about whatyou're going to do and what's
going to happen if things gowrong, let's talk about things
that you're going to get to do.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
If you do things right, that's right so, yeah,
maybe that didn't get across thefinish line, but it gives him
the confidence that he can leaninto the next time in order for
his pitch what do you want tochange?
Speaker 2 (44:09):
discipline, discipline, consistent
discipline.
Great that public education isgoing to die because it will not
evolve.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Team is Jim Cripps here with the charge for podcast
.
I just want to tell you I loveyou, I appreciate you listening,
I appreciate you forsubscribing and sharing the
charge for podcast with peopleyou know and you love, because
that's what we're here for.
We are here to share theamazing stories, the things that
people have been through, theways that they were able to
(44:40):
improve their life, so that youcan take little nuggets from
theirs and help improve yourstory and be better tomorrow
than you were today.
I hope that this is the toolyou needed at the right time and
that you find value in theamazing guests that we bring
each and every week.
Thanks so much and don't forgetnew episodes drop every
(45:01):
Thursday.
You are the cap for whatever goes on in your store,
in your company, in yourdistrict, in your household.
However excited you are, whatyou believe is possible,
whatever that threshold is.
Hey team, jim Cripps here withthe Charge Forward podcast,
(00:23):
coming to you from HitLabStudios here in Nashville,
tennessee.
Now I've got a special guestfor you today.
He is the executive director ofthe EIC in Williamson County.
He's a longtime entrepreneur.
He is just a dedicated familyman as well as a lifelong
educator.
Welcome, mr Jeremy Qualls.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to be here.
I hope that your viewers don'tturn us off in the first 30
seconds because I may not.
You know the lifelong educationpiece, but I hope I have some
things and some nuggets here forpeople to take back.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Absolutely.
I find what you do there justthe spirit of the EIC, and
before we met I had no idea thatthat even existed, that it was
even a thing.
So that's the Entrepreneur andInnovation Center in Williamson
County, correct?
That is correct, yes, and whatis the spirit of it?
I know it's 9th through 12thgrade, but it's not like normal
(01:14):
school.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
It's not like normal school at all.
If you're a Williamson Countyparent and you're part of the
Williamson County school system,let me make sure we're up front
and clear about that.
This is a Williamson CountySchool System.
Let me make sure we're up frontand clear about that.
This is a Williamson CountySchool System program, so you
have to be enrolled in one ofthe ten high schools and it
started six years ago.
It's on the campus of FranklinHigh School in the old Annex
building.
It used to be the vocationalbuilding at one point in time 40
(01:38):
years ago and then after thatit was retroed for Columbia
State.
Columbia State CommunityCollege was in there for 15 plus
years and then, when they builttheir new campus, we got it
back.
Dr Mike Looney and some peoplewent on a trip to Denver,
colorado, saw thisentrepreneurial program in a
classroom and they were tryingto make a decision at that time
(02:00):
what are we going to do withthis space, what are we going to
do with this building?
So he went back.
He said I know exactly and I'mso thankful for his vision on
this that him and some otherfolks got together and went back
retro this building and startedthe Entrepreneurship Innovation
Center, better known as the EIC.
What it is is a application andinterview process to even get in
.
We just don't take kids.
(02:21):
It started with 72 kids.
Now we have a waiting list ofover 500 to even get in.
We have an enrollment roughlyof 280, 275 to 280.
That is the sweet spot for us.
We have four teachers there.
We don't even call themteachers, they are facilitators.
I mean, the kids come in and toshow you the power of the
(02:42):
program, our very first class isduring what we call zero period
.
It starts at 7 o'clock.
That's an hour before any ofour schools start and it's one
of the first that our kids goand take and fill up.
Because you've got athletesthat have after school or during
school things they have to do.
You've got AP honor studentsthat have a full slate of
classes that they can't reallyjuggle around to even be at the
(03:05):
EIC.
To be at the EIC you have tohave two free periods.
You have to give up a studyhall or lunch for travel time
and then obviously the classroomtime that you have, and we see
kids every day.
But anyway, that zero period,that's a testament to how
powerful the program is.
We've got kids that are comingan hour before school to take
this class, yeah, and we providetransportation in the middle of
the day for those that cannotdrive.
(03:26):
And then when they get there,it is literally you've seen the
space, it's an open collab space.
It's not like any school.
We make sure our saying is itdoesn't smell like school, it
doesn't look like school and itdoesn't taste like school.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
No, not at all.
And you know, the thing that Ifound really interesting there
is, you know, the I think it'scalled the right thing with the
collab space, because you've gotall these young minds that are
really again, like you said, notreally teachers, because
they're really just trying toguide and answer questions,
(04:01):
because their minds are the onesthat are like oh well, what if
I want to do this, and how do Iget through that?
And and that type ofenvironment.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
What separates us from any other business
marketing fill in the blankclass in any given high school
across America is the fact thatwe've got 150 mentors built into
this, baked into this, that arefrom the private sector, that
come in, that volunteer theirtime.
We have a dedicated day monthlyfor those mentors to come in.
You know, if a mentor only has30 minutes, that's great.
(04:34):
Sign up for a 30-minute block.
We got you, you're in and out.
Most people say that and theylook up and they've been there
for eight hours a day.
But what they do is we playspeed dating right, we us today.
But but what they do is we playspeed dating right.
We get them out there.
The kids go around, they havethree minutes to put their pitch
on them and those mentors saythat's a great idea.
Well, that's a terrible idea.
And hey, have you ever thoughtabout this?
Hey, I know somebody over herethat I can get you connected
(04:57):
with.
That'll help you.
You know, it's just one ofthose things.
It's a pay it forward deal andthey're so passionate about it
that what happens is six monthsinto this process, they start
latching on to groups.
The next thing, you knowthey're, they're fully invested,
you know with those groups andpushing them forward and hoping
they get launched and hopingthey make it into the finals of
our shark tank process wherethere's actual cash, actual seed
(05:19):
funding up for grabs.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, well, and I think it's that, um, you know,
if I'm, if I'm coming insomewhere and I'm speaking to a
group, there are groups thatthat you're giving energy to and
they don't give you energy back.
What I see at the EIC is peopleget energy while they're giving
energy because they see thelight bulbs clicking, they see
(05:43):
the things going off in thesekids' heads, and then when they
come back, they see what they'vealready done, because we get
used to, we give energy orenergy, or information,
suggestions, et cetera, and thepeople don't do anything with
them and they're like sponges.
They're just hoping somebodyfeeds into them so that they can
(06:03):
get where they're trying to gofaster.
So you come back and you seewhat they've done with what you
gave them and then you're moreexcited to give again.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That's a very astute point.
I know you've been there andyou've seen it.
You can feel the energy in thebuilding.
Oh yeah, now there's somethingI want to remind everybody.
Even though we're a publicschool system, they're choosing
to be there, they're wanting tobe there.
So the type of quality ofstudent that we have is is off
the charts, right, number one.
They're eager, they're they'rewilling to learn, they're
(06:32):
ambitious, they're all of thosethings self-disciplined,
hardworking.
So I think what really happensis the feedback that we get from
the adults that are.
The mentors are like I had apreconceived notion about
today's youth.
You see the negativity, you seethe social media, you see all
the ignorance that's happeningin traps that people fall into.
But then when they come to thescene, they say these kids like
(06:53):
hey, I gave you three ideas andyou brought back seven.
That's unheard of right.
So it gives that energy backthat you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It does Well.
And I kind of liken it to yourtop athletes, because I loved
hiring athletes because they haddiscipline, they knew how to
get to be coached, they actuallyknew how they liked to be
coached, where so many peopledon't.
And I think this, the spirit ofthe EIC, is kind of in that
same light.
And these are not your averageeveryday kids or regardless of
(07:22):
their age kids or regardless oftheir age.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
You bring up another good point too, and I think that
in some form or fashion in mybrain, whether I'm choosing to
do so or not, I agree with youon the athletic piece.
Right.
My whole entire makeup,background, philosophies the way
I work.
Everything is dedicated to thecraft that we own.
For many, many hours in thebackyard when nobody was looking
(07:44):
right and mine was basketballToo bad.
Colby's not here because hewould talk about Millsaps
College.
I'm going to give him a shoutout for Millsaps, but there's a
lot of truth, because he talksabout it a ton, talking about
taking those athletes and howperseverance, adversity,
self-discipline, all thosethings craft the person that you
are, you know.
I never forget the first time Ibecame principal.
(08:04):
I that you are, I never forgetthe first time I became
principal.
I was 31 years old when Ibecame principal and I had been
a head coach head basketballcoach before that.
I was the youngest in the stateto become head coach at that
time.
I didn't need it, I didn'tdeserve it, but I got it.
And there was a reason why Igot it because I thought I was
going to take this team to thestate championship, because I
was so brilliant, such abrilliant mind at the age of,
(08:26):
you know, 23, 24, 25 years old,that I led my team to a five and
21 first year.
You know and and the humblingexperiences that.
Anyway, my point is, when I gotto become principal and the
fires coming down and things arehappening, I'd be like man, why
aren't you getting?
I was like this is, this isSunday school.
Man, you got to sit over thereas a 25 year old.
(08:47):
Try to get a bunch of 16, 17,18 year olds to do what you
asked them to do to put food onyour table, Cause if you do not
win, you're going to lose yourjob.
That's right, that's fire.
Yeah, this is playtime.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Well, and you bring it up.
Another good point there I lovethis conversation is you know,
so much today has been watereddown by us not keeping score, um
, about us not talking aboutsomebody won and somebody lost
and what you need to do, whatyou need to fix.
So that's one reason why I lovethe coaching aspect, the sports
aspect, those types of things,but it plays right into your
(09:21):
career.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Like it, it does.
And you know anything you dooutside of bowling, golf.
Even then there's a teamconcept at some point in time.
Uh, for me it was basketball.
So I mean, you can't hide youwhen there's five people on the
floor.
It's hard, it's hard to hideand if you're not any good and
they have to hide you, you'renot going to play, that's right.
So you have to continuallyfight for a spot, which is
(09:46):
something I love.
And then when you get into thereal world, it's like you said
people like, if they haven'tdone it, you can't.
It's hard to learn older, right,you have to go through that
trial by fire.
You have to understand you haveto lose.
You have to go five and twentyone in your first year to say,
hmm, what's the problem?
And then I went six and 20.
Hey, I improved a game.
(10:06):
And then I went seven wins thethird year and I thought, okay,
this is insanity, I haven'tchanged anything.
I keep thinking that theplayers are going to change,
they're going to change theoutcome.
But it was the coach the wholetime, it was me.
Until I learned that valuablelesson, I wouldn't be sitting
here with you today.
Yeah, yeah, and that's allbecause of failure.
So the first thing that weteach at the SE is fail often
(10:32):
and fail forward.
If you're not learning throughyour failures, it's insanity.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
You're doing the same thing over and over.
Yeah, absolutely Well, andagain, I think that's.
That's one of those thingsthat's lost in a lot of
households and I'm going to putthis back on the parents is
they're so quick to remove painfrom the situation that the kid
never learns how to deal with it, and so then that's where we
end up with 20-year-olds thatcan't hold a job or can't make
(10:58):
it through school because theycan't handle somebody holding
them accountable.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I think about this all the time.
As a father of three, I havefailed miserably.
I'm hoping by the third one, bythe time he gets old enough
that he can.
Maybe I have learned my lesson.
Like coaching right, nothinggets you ready for fatherhood.
My father told me all the waythrough one day, son, you'll
understand.
One day, son, you'll understand.
I'm like whatever.
And now I'm like.
(11:26):
He's so right.
Here we are and and I try toraise our children with failure
in mind.
Yeah, hey, it's okay to fail.
Okay, what'd we do wrong?
Now, as we go back, when youapproach this scenario again and
we have helicopter parents thisday that you know that just at
all costs comfort them andshield them from failures and
(11:46):
the teachable moments of that.
It's not fun.
Nobody wants to do itspecifically with athletics with
your own children.
Yeah, you know, do you livevicariously through your
children or do you back up andsay they're their own person?
Either they got to want itthemselves and if they fail, or
don't make the team.
There's lessons involved inthat.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Don't complain about your playing time.
What have you done to change it?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
That's right.
Well, and a lot of times it'sattitude and it's how they
adapted to that challenge,whether it was they missed the
shot, or I mean all the way downto you know, I love it when
Colby talks about him making thegoal or making a shot in the
wrong goal.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
He does that quite often.
Don't let him lie to you.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Right, right, you know, but if you don't learn to
recover from things, it's goingto be a tough life.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
It is that resilience factor is so overlooked a lot
of times and in fact you knowyou go back to the
entrepreneurship side.
So we have 150 mentors.
The vast majority of them aresome type of entrepreneur.
First question I always askwhen we get together as mentors
is like okay, how many of youare on your first business and
out of the 150 you might haveone hand go up?
Yeah, how many are on yoursecond business?
(12:58):
How many are in your thirdbusiness?
How many you get to five andsix?
That's when the hands startgoing up, yeah, and you start
thinking about the failure andthe lessons that are in that of
the iterations.
That is maybe their productthat evolved over those six
iterations, or they justcompletely pivoted altogether
because of the failures.
Yeah, they could have easilyquit.
(13:18):
They could have easily went andgot a nine to five job and felt
safe.
But boats aren't made to be inthat harbor.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Smooth seas don't make skillful sellers.
I mean, that's just the truth.
You got to get out there.
I wish kobe was here becausehe'd be rolling his eyes right
now, because he'd be, he'd bereferencing drucker or some kind
of.
You know, we call ourselvestown and country.
He's the, the city slicker thatlikes to talk in bumper
stickers, and I just get rednecklogic going right, right, it's
literally comes down to that,though.
Yeah, what do you do in thosefailures?
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Yeah Well, I mean, cliches are cliches for a reason
.
I mean it's because they've beenused over and over and over Um
and it's because we don't havenew problems.
I mean, don't get me wrong AIand some things.
Obviously they're creating somenew dynamics, but you know a
lot of the problems that thatpeople go through growing up.
They're the same problems thathave been around a long, long
time.
(14:07):
You know how do you deal withfailure, how do you deal with
and you mentioned helicopterparents, but I think, and I
didn't know this was a thinguntil just maybe a year or two
ago, but they call themlawnmower parents that clear the
way so that the child neversees a problem.
It's terrible.
It's terrible.
You're stealing that.
You're stealing that.
You're stealing that from yourkid and their future and really
(14:28):
you're damaging your grandkids.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, we're going to come a time that this is going
to be, you know, you feel likeeverything is cyclical, that it
will come back around, I guessmaybe to the old golden days of
raising kids at the 50s and 60sand 70s and 80s, right, and I
don't know.
Man, it's really dishearteningto watch.
You know, being a coach, Idon't know that you could pay me
(14:52):
enough money to get back in thecoaching profession because
nobody's ever right.
Right, I mean no coach is everright, never, you know.
And then I followed up mycoaching gig after I got into
admin with the district athleticdirector of Williamson County,
which I was before the EIC,that's right.
And you know, for five years Ihad to ride hard over 320
(15:13):
coaches and 10,000 studentathletes in Williamson County.
Let's just say that every jobpast that is pretty much Sunday
school, because you know you'vegot highly ambitious people.
Nothing wrong with that.
But the high ambition sometimescomes with the blinders too.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Sometimes and that entitlement, that's not.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
The entitlement.
You know, hey, I'm paying $400a month for my kid to go to this
personal trainer.
I'm like you might want to saveyour money.
You know, I'm just going to behonest with you and I found that
when I had discussions withdisgruntled parents over
coaching and or their or playingtime or whatever, uh, sometimes
(15:58):
the more blunt you are, thefaster you get to that bluntness
to them, the faster thatconversation's over.
So then all of a sudden, I wentfrom well, let's talk about
this to you.
Know what I've been to?
That that's not true.
That's not accurate.
I've been to the practices,I've been to games.
Your kid just ain't good enoughto play on that.
Tell me who they're going toplay over and that's the end of
the, because they default backto, at some point in time, their
(16:20):
failures and they're going backto what you're saying.
They're trying to protect themfrom that failure.
So sometimes when you talk, youknow I just want to be
realistic.
It's what we do at DIC with thekids.
That is a bad idea.
Let me tell you why it's a badidea.
You're going to have to getthat created overseas.
They're going to have tariffsand you're going to have to get
(16:42):
that created overseas that aregoing to have tariffs and you're
going to have to go throughcustoms.
You don't have time for that,you don't have the
infrastructure for that, youdon't even have your business
license yet.
So let's back up.
If we don't have those fullconversations with those kids at
the USC, they're going to spendsix months on a frivolous
project and then wake up and saywhy didn't you tell me this in
the first six days?
No different with disgruntledpeople.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
The reality is, the faster you can get to the truth
with somebody.
Almost 100% of the time, that'show you serve them best.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
It's not fun.
It's not and it's not foreverybody.
It's not fun.
When I was coach, I usually hadto break down some of the kids.
I had a guy.
I love him to this day.
His nickname was Pappy TerryHudson, Lexington High School.
I love that guy.
I hope he watches this.
Be like Pap.
You got one job.
If you want to play, Do notshoot.
You're going to rebound.
The only time you can shoot isoff your own offensive rebound.
(17:29):
If you get an offensive rebound, put it back up.
Other than that, you get rid ofit.
He bought into that.
He became a great player.
His role was not to shoot In,Shoot.
In his mind.
When we first started, he was ascorer.
Pap, I hate to tell you buddy,yeah, you want to play.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Offensive rebounds.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Well, you know and I think this is fostered by social
media and then just all thedifferent things out there that
push sometimes people in thewrong ways.
I think it's Jack Daly thatsays that the average Little
League team is run better thanthe average business, and it's
because Little League playersknow their role.
If I'm shortstop, I know what Ido.
If I'm the pitcher, I know whatI do.
(18:09):
If I'm the catcher, I know whatI do.
And sometimes people areconfused as to what their role
is.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Well, biases haven't crept in yet.
Egos haven't quite gotten thereyet.
If you're on a winning teamRandy's team, right, oh yeah,
parents aren't going to besaying everybody wants to be a
part of a winner.
If you're on a losing team, theparents start to chatter and
they chatter in front of the kidand it just muddies it up.
But, like you said, yes, noneof that has.
(18:35):
The innocence is still there.
The wanting to please whomeveris still there, whether it be
your teammate and or your coach.
When you get older, that's whenthose biases creeped in.
When that happens, it's really,really difficult.
I think about that from talentdevelopment perspective.
We call our team the pirateship.
I want the best.
(18:56):
I'm going to go and I'm goingto steal and pirate every single
top talent I can get.
I'm not afraid of somebody.
I don't want to be the smartestin the room.
My father always said if youthink you're in your smartest
room, you go to a different room.
That's right.
There's a lot of truth in that.
I want to surround myself withpeople that won't not
necessarily this sounds, youknow.
This is when you start readingthose guru books.
(19:24):
Hire people that want to takeyour job.
Have enough confidence to hirepeople that are that can do your
job better.
Yeah, absolutely empower them,make them autonomous within a
structure and go forth andconquer yeah, well, and I think
that's.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
There's two different mindsets there.
A lot of people manage out of,they're trying to keep them in
their boxes, yes, and thenpeople that lead and I mean
truly lead lead people that arebetter than them.
They are constantly looking forthat talent that can take the
entire team to the next level,and then you're just guilty by
association.
I will tell you for I mean themajority of my career, I was not
(19:59):
the guy, but I knew the guybecause I hired him or the girl
Like I had experts in all typesof places that I had this much
knowledge.
I didn't need to be the expertin that field, I needed to have
them on my team and then letthem do their thing, like you
said, within the framework, sothat everybody was better
because of it.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I spent two weeks with my wife for our 20th
anniversary in New Zealand and Itold her when I was gone I was
like I'm not going to checkanything.
It's the first time in mycareer I think I've really
checked out of work.
I really did.
I mean, I could honestly say Ichecked out and I said you know
what, when I come back theydon't even need me anymore.
I said that group, I love ourteam, I love our team.
(20:42):
I mean it's just, I've puttogether some people that just
are unbelievable teammates, careabout each other just not from
a personal, I mean from a workstandpoint, but from a personal
standpoint, but they are.
They were diamonds in the rough.
I don't know, this is notself-serving, this is not
narcissistic.
I'm just saying I don't knowthis is.
This is not self-serving, thisis not narcissistic.
(21:02):
I'm just saying I don't have alot of quality.
I don't know what I have.
I'm all over the map.
But one thing that I think thatI do see, for whatever reason
that that guy gave me, was beable to see people and say,
either one, their con arson,their car salesman, or number
two, that person's got someunbelievable talent.
Oh yeah, and the team that Ihave.
(21:22):
It's just I'm so thankful forJen, chris and Paula and Kim and
all the people that we havebecause, as an example, chris,
who works with us, chris was ateacher at a high school, had
applied for severaladministration jobs, gotten
looked over, passed over, passedover, don't know why Foolish.
(21:45):
Now she could have any job inWisconsin as she wants, because
they see it now.
And when I started the Wilco's,which is our version of the
Espy's, when I was an athleticdirector, she was a soccer coach
, yeah, and she texted me Firstoff.
She hit me up First day I wastouring that building, never
even know who she was.
Came up, she said, hey, youknew the athletic director.
Yeah, we need lights on ourfield.
(22:06):
Hey, not, how are you doing?
I'm like now, who is thisNorthern Razor's Edge?
Right, so she goes through thisconversation.
And then we got to know eachother.
We're laughing.
She says hey, says hey, wereally do need light.
So I started looking into it.
Anyway, along the side, youknow, we get the uh wheelcoats
going.
She calls me.
She said, hey, I'm looking formore admin roles.
I want to help you fast forwardto the night that the the
(22:32):
wheelcoats.
After it's over.
Everybody's gone.
I send my wife home and I'm outthere in a tuxedo.
I take my the jacket off.
I'm rolling up carpets and thereshe is, in a dress, pregnant,
putting up rugs and didn't evenask her Got home.
I told my wife.
I was like if I ever get anopportunity, she's going to be
(22:54):
my number one hire.
Now she's assistant director.
I probably get in their way.
I just need to get out of theway and let them.
I mean, that's what I'm talkingabout, pirate, right?
People like well, you have aunique ability to hire.
No, it's not a unique ability,it's the confidence in people
and confidence in yourself thatI'm not worried to bring in the
(23:16):
right people on that are smarter, better, it's OK.
Yeah, because we're going tomake a cool team dynamic and
culture.
That's a non-negotiable and I'mgoing to let them soar.
I mean that's what we're hereto do.
I mean let them go.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
No, I believe almost exactly the same thing and for
years I looked at it as kind oftwo different ways.
One, I'm looking for puzzlepieces and you're looking for
that person that fits that role,that makes the whole thing come
together.
Or I also described it as likemisfit toys that were made for
this particular kid or for thisparticular scenario.
(23:49):
And you know, taking thosepeople that other people
overlook, foolishly overlook,because you're not willing to
ask what are they supposed to bedoing?
Like what do they want?
Like what's the bigger picturefor this person, and then
plugging them in, and I meanliterally, you look like a rock
star when it's really them.
You're just giving them a placeto shine.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
That's so accurate.
I learned this lesson from agood friend of mine and the
person that followed me intothat athletic directorship job,
a guy named Darren Joins.
He's a longtime basketballcoach, very close friend of mine
and a remarkable human, and Inever forget going to his
practices, going to his gamesand watching him and talking to
him constantly.
(24:29):
It's like, dude, you're lettingthat guy run practice.
He's like what's your point?
It's like you're the head coach.
I was falling back into that 5and 21,.
Jeremy, where it has to be me,the light has to be on me.
I got hired to do this, thisjob, because, my God, I deserve
it.
That's the old me.
And then I started watching andnext thing, you know, the
(24:51):
practices are so Well old.
And then you got the one-on-oneaspect of the teaching down to
the toe, down to that littleleague aspect that everybody's
bought into and all those peopleare working extremely hard and
he's sitting back and evaluating, watching and just moving
pieces around.
I was like that's smart.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Hire people that are talented, that are just as good
as you, and let them roll, yeah,and I mean, it's such a simple
concept, simple concept.
So I, I, I like to think I'mvery cautious now that when we
do have openings, that theculture and the team dynamic is
at all costs.
So it's not my decision.
We do everything as a team,everything.
(25:27):
Now I may have to veto and theyveto me, and that's fine and
that's part of that culture thatwe have internally, but it
works.
It doesn't necessarily work foreverybody, because you have to
be willing to let go of thereins and that's tough.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
You do, and you have to have the right people that
are willing to push back whenthey know that that's the wrong
thing, and that means thatyou've got to have fostered an
environment where they can speakup.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
It's not the wrong thing more so than it is.
What are we here fighting for?
Because that wrong thing can bemisconstrued, as Jim really
wants to do this, because it'sgoing to make Jim look good,
right, and that's not what we'redoing, that's right.
There's not a decision that'smade that's going to make Jeremy
look good, chris look good,paula look good.
It's saying what's best forthese kids and that's who we
serve.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I love it.
That's the mission.
That that's the mission.
That's the mission, and I meanthat's why you're so successful
at it.
And you guys, you just brokeground on some pretty amazing
stuff too.
If you will Give us a lookunder the hood on that, we did.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
We're so excited about this and anytime we get an
opportunity, thank you for that.
So Governor Lee, three yearsago allocated $500 million for
vocational training, skillseducation, right, tech.
We call it cte career andtechnical education and um, uh,
being the exec director not onlyof the ic but over the cte
(26:45):
world as well.
We have roughly 140 teachersacross 10 buildings, 30
something programs.
So when they dropped this, itwas like you had to modify the
way you teach, the time that youteach your partners that you
teach with and facilities.
So we started thinking what arewe going to do?
That's going to leave a legacywith this money.
(27:06):
So the formula was every highschool within your system gets a
million bucks.
Middle schools get $500,000.
You can pull.
That's the first verb, thefirst word, excuse me, that came
out of the mouths of the peoplethat were doing it and I was
going okay, pull the money.
That means, so I had to carrythe two.
Do this.
15 and a half million.
It's like, okay, that's cool,you can do something significant
(27:27):
.
Then they said you could build.
That's the only two words Iheard in the entire process Pull
and build, pull and build andLike I looked at my table of my
colleagues that are across thedistrict, the middle Tennessee
area.
You've got Metro Nashville,you've got Wilson County,
rutherford County, cheathamCounty, sumner County all of
them sitting at the table and Ilooked at it immediately.
I said we're going to build.
And they all looked at me likeyou're crazy.
(27:49):
I'm like we're going to build.
And then they said, well,there's going to be a 10% cap on
the building process.
So then I did the math and Iwas on 1.5.
Man, you can't do that.
So chris looked at me.
She said what are you gonna do?
How you gonna pull this off?
I said we're gonna request ameeting, we're gonna put a pitch
on them that they cannot turnus down on.
So we put together a deck, weget this idea together.
(28:10):
We started talking to people,kind of got a couple of
renderings.
It's like this is what it couldpotentially look like.
I'm'm thankful that we havesuch unbelievable partners in
the Williamson Inc.
Matt Large and his group, ceoof Williamson Inc, our chamber,
along with Rogers Anderson, themayor, got together and said hey
, we got an idea.
We need land.
Of course, land is at a premium, so if we'd have bought land,
(28:33):
it'd have eaten up most of the,you know, a third of the $15
million.
So there's a piece of landbeside the eic that used to be
the old dog kennel.
They've already built a new dogkennel, moved that facility out
.
That's been vacant for threeyears.
It's worthless piece ofproperty, honestly, because it
sits on franklin.
You know it's zoned, youcouldn't build anything and
(28:54):
mayor anderson said we're gonna,we're care of it, we're going
to give you that.
And I was like whoa, that wasawesome.
So that was step one.
Step two got on the phone, dida Zoom call with the
Commissioner of Education andeverybody that was over this
$500 million process and it wasthe GIVE grants, governor's
(29:15):
Initiative on VocationalEducation.
So we Innovative School, schoolmodels grant pardon me, I
assume that Gil came before that, I assume folks.
So we got on zoom call.
I said all right, here's what Iwant to do.
I said, just hear my pitch andy'all shoot us down or do
whatever.
But we got this thing.
Bam bam, bam.
We get to the end and they'relike this is exactly the spirit
(29:37):
of what this is.
I said why did you put a cap onit?
And they kind of laughed and Ithink they've backed up off the
cap.
But they, they gave me thegreen light.
So then we had to go back, wehad to work you know kind of
commission and everybody has toapprove for the funds to be
funneled.
And all that went through.
So we finally got to the point.
It's a four-year grant.
This is year three that wefinally got to break the ground
because you've gone through thearchitectural phase, engineering
(29:59):
phase.
We broke ground on December the3rd and they have to be done by
July of 26, july 1.
They said they'd get it done.
Bell Construction greatpartners, are doing the
construction.
So that's a long story.
To get to this point, what isthis building?
We're going to take the EICmodel and we're going to overlay
(30:19):
it.
In this building there's goingto be four worlds in the
building.
Let me add fifth.
Chris always gets mad because Iforget the fifth World one I
started talking about.
Part of the foundation of thisISM grant was you had to do
something with industry partners.
So I started peddling this topeople.
(30:40):
I got told no.
So many times I thought for aminute there I was like I'm
never going to find anybody.
I said I just need one to fallRight.
So I got with the CEO ofThompson Caterpillar sitting
here in Nashville, yep, andwithin 20 minutes he was like I
mean, what do you want us to do?
So they are sponsoring 5,000square feet in this facility.
It's going to be a ThompsonCaterpillar machine tech program
(31:03):
and it's going to be two forone.
One of them has never been donein the United States, which I'm
pretty excited about.
The other one has been done andwe're going to build upon it,
which is heavy machinetechnology.
So the kids are going to becoming in.
Another academic partner in thekids are going to be coming in.
Another academic partner inspace is going to be the
Tennessee Colleges of AppliedTechnology, which is better
known as TCAT.
So TCAT is going to provideteachers in there they're going
(31:30):
to get collegiate creditstowards an industry
certification while these kidsare going through high school
with Thompson Caterpillar inthere.
I mean it's going to be threebays, three ton cranes, modules
coming in.
They're bringing the drop in,the big engines in.
They're doing all of that, youknow, pneumatics, all of that
stuff which I think is extremelycool.
And then they're going to be.
Hopefully, if we do our jobs,by their senior year they'll be
down at the Caterpillar TechCenter right south of 840 on
(31:53):
Columbia Pike down there workingalongside Caterpillar
technicians, and then they'll beready to work.
That's great.
That's going on sites with atruck roughly $100,000 start,
yeah, zero.
College education.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Zero debt.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Zero debt Applied technology industry credentials
embedded.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
And it's good for the industry too.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
It's great.
The second one that theybrought upon us was hey, would
you be interested in energypower generation?
I was like, yeah, what's thatlook like?
Well, according to them Ididn't know this Thompson
Caterpillar is the largestprovider in the world of
generators generators.
(32:40):
So if you think about it, whena hotel, a hospital, a bank,
anything, the power goes down,they're either one or two, one
of three.
Genrac, kohler, thompson Capitaland Thompson Capital is the
biggest.
Right now.
They tell us they're working onthree to six generators that
have never been built before.
We're talking about abillion-dollar in contracts with
Elon and Tesla on their serverfarm that's being set up outside
(33:04):
of Memphis right now.
Oh wow.
So it has to run on aparticular humidity rate.
What they asked for TVA told mewhat they asked for out there
could run the entire state inkilowatts.
So it has to be a hybridprogram.
So they have to run half of itoff these generators, half of it
off the grid, and if anythinghappens to the grid, the
(33:25):
generator's got to pick up 100%.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
So they're building things that have never been
created before.
So our kids are going to getthe benefit of seeing this
process.
So if you want to become anelectrical engineer, this
program is going to be great.
So one thing this program isgoing to be great.
So one thing this building isgoing to do for us.
Our number one priority is tochange the thought process.
I've been reading this bookcalled Play Bigger.
You've got to read it.
It's awesome, talking aboutpirates, innovators and
(33:48):
entrepreneurs and how they playbigger.
Category kings is the numberone thing they talk about.
In category kings, you startthinking about who is a category
king?
Well, apple's a category king,uber's a category king, amazon's
a category king.
So you talk about what are we?
How can we become categorykings in education?
(34:08):
And this, to me, is how you doit.
It's not that you're solving aproblem.
You're solving a problem fasterand better than what's been
done before.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
You look at Uber.
Uber was a taxi company, but itbecame a tech company.
And the minute it became a techcompany, it changed the
category.
Right, and it changed how youinteracted with it Exactly and
even though you might have toget a lift, you still call it an
Uber, that's right.
Right, so the second place folkscan survive.
(34:39):
The third, fourth and beyondare all gobbled up, and guess
what happens to?
That goes back to my piratetheory on education and hiring
good people.
All the great people want towork, for whom?
The number one, the categorykey.
So you start thinking aboutthis from a votec standpoint of
not just having vocationalclasses in your classroom.
We've got a place where you cancome, you can work alongside an
industry partner that is usingtheir standards.
(35:01):
You're working along acollegiate program that's
actually the credentialing basefor the industry credential and
when I turn 18, I can go to workfor these people.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Well, even just the exposure, the exposure that
they're going to have Right Ismonumental.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
So let's say I go into this and I spend three
years of my high school career,I spend an hour a day and I
decide that's not what I want todo.
Why would you not do it on ourdime then later and being in
debt?
That's just.
That's just a small piece ofthe puzzle, all right.
So there's world one, world twocybersecurity, ai.
We are working on some deals.
(35:39):
Right now I can't mention ityet.
When I get it solidified, Ihope I get it solidified with a
blue chip company as well as auniversity that's very well
known that just started a NSAprogram with the.
NSA former chief.
So if I can get this deal done,there's some really cool
possibilities.
I got a lot of post-secondaryinstitutions circling this and
(35:59):
I've got to figure out who thebest partner is.
I think there's room for all.
But anyway, there's world two.
World three, I think, is a verycool one.
It's our number one requestedcte program, which is culinary,
believe it or not really we'vegot kids that we have to kick
out, we don't.
We just we can't put them in.
We're overfilled.
So what we're going to do iswe're not just going to do
(36:20):
culinary, because I think that'sa little bit one one
dimensional for our building.
I said let's make it a biggerand better thing.
So we're going to call ithospitality, hospitality and
tourism management.
So embedded in there you've gota hell's Kitchen-styled scratch
kitchen.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
That competitions can be had in there, nice, and then
you've got a mock hotel lobby,mock hotel room, mock hotel
bathrooms.
So we're going to learn frontof house, behind the house,
everything in between, how torun hotels, how to do culinary
programs.
We're going to mash that up.
I think what we're trying to dois going to run this building
net zero.
(36:59):
So how do we do that?
So, as a fundraising process,people can host a meeting there.
Our people will do all thelogistics.
I love it Right.
So for a small fee that goestowards the building, we're
trying to be net zero in thebuilding, sure, and so this is
really cool.
Our partners in that, justinFoster, who's general manager of
(37:21):
Harpeth Hotel, our five-starhotel in downtown Franklin We've
got Halifax Properties I mean,hitesh Patel and his family have
been unbelievable.
And then all this is going tobe mashed up.
We'll have more people come tothe table.
All those people that told meno to begin with will be like,
hey, how come y'all didn'tapproach us about this?
They'll forget once this thingis actually happening.
Oh yeah, I was trying to sellthem a pie in the sky.
It's hard to see it, but nowthat we got some movement they
(37:41):
were like, hey, how do I getinvolved?
But that's World 3.
World 4 is aviation privatepilot license.
We are working with HawkinsFlight Academy guys out of
Nolensville, not far down theroad from here.
Kids will actually be able tohave loggable hours towards
their private pilot license.
We're going to have full-movingsimulators in there.
(38:06):
Mtsu is our secondary partnerwith that.
They've got two routes.
You want to go to school andget your post-secondary degree
and then go to work for acommercial airline.
That's the route you can go.
If I just want to get a privatepilot license, we have a route
(38:27):
for that.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Well, the opportunities in being a pilot,
and I wasn't aware of this, butCOVID kind of created this
problem.
I wasn't aware of this, butCOVID kind of created this
problem.
And the problem was you hadpeople that weren't expected to
retire for another five to tenyears, that went ahead and said
I'm not dealing with all this,I'm retiring, and so there's
this gap.
(38:49):
And so whether we're talkingabout on the commercial side,
whether we're talking about onthe private side I mean, even I
didn't even know that this was athing there's people that have
that just fly dogs.
They literally they fly dogsfrom wherever in the United
States to their new owners.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
But it costs more money to fly dogs than it does
humans.
We don't bet.
Oh, I have no doubt.
No doubt.
Doug Crulon is the president ofthe Metropolitan Airport
Authority at B&A right.
Doug's a superhuman being.
He's another one of ourpartners he was just talking
about.
There's 12,500 badge holders,in other words, employees on the
(39:26):
grounds of B&A every day,12,500.
They move Nissan Stadium dailyof people and he's like we're
fixing to open up an additional.
I'm going to say this wrong.
This number's going to be wrong.
I think it's 20 million annual,going towards 40 million annual
when they open up everythingthey're building.
(39:47):
Wow.
So you think about that.
You think about the jobs thatare going to come with, not just
in the aviation process alone,from flying dogs to flying
humans, to flying or radiocontrol tower, it doesn't matter
, there are opportunities outthere.
The mechanical side on this ishuge too.
They can't find employees.
You know we're going to look atis there a crossover between
the Thompson Caterpillar processand maybe jets and whatnot, and
(40:09):
see what we can do.
But it's very interesting.
Our fifth world is we've strucka deal with the city of
Franklin, which I think is cool.
They're having a little bit ofa difficulty in hiring fire
employees.
So we're doing a fire sciencemanagement program in
conjunction with the city ofFranklin and their fire
(40:31):
department and our HR departmenthas lowered their age
requirements to get in from 21to 18.
So we're going to put themthrough this process.
They're going to man it,they're going to operate,
they're going to teach it.
They get to handpick sixinterns on the backside of that
and out of that six they'regoing to select who's going to
get employed.
(40:51):
I love it and I just think it'sreally cool.
It's not a lot of quantity,it's a smaller style, more niche
program, if you will.
But we've got data that says Ithink we have upwards to 300
that have the aptitude andinterest to be in that.
So we're going to make it sospecific that it's kind of like
(41:11):
the EIC you get selected,congratulations you're in.
Because we're only looking for12 to 14 a year anyways.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Well, and you're looking for the best.
You're looking for the onesthat are going into that, with
or without you, and they'redetermined.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
You know you can be debt-free.
They even have a collegereimbursement program to go into
FIRE.
You know they have a reallycool schedule for a single young
adult.
You know you go a couple dayshome, couple of days off.
It's pretty interesting how itis and if I was a single adult
that'd be something I'd look atand say you know, I need to get
a college degree for whateverreason we'll fall back on, I'd
go through the fire, let thempay for it.
(41:45):
And they say you know you mightwork up the ladder in the fire
department and they pay reallywell once you get going.
And even the intro pay rightnow on fire is higher than
teachers.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
So that's the world.
Now here's the cool thing.
I stole this from Purdue.
Purdue University came andtoured EIC and upon their
conversation I was asking themit's like hey, give me some
ideas.
We got this building coming.
I want those kids to not onlylearn the skills, but we got to
get business models embedded.
Yeah, if I want to open up myown aviation uh program or
(42:21):
whatever tutoring or a pilotlicensing program.
They may have the skill set,but they don't have the
knowledge of the business aspect.
So the guy's like here's whatwe do at purdue we overlay
inter-business studies, ibs iswhat it's called, and he's like
you know engineering, we'reengineering school engineering,
engineer engineer.
They get out, they know how tobuild xyz, but they don't know
how to run their own company.
So what we're going to do is,once they go through that,
they're going to have to walkacross the parking lot and take
(42:46):
a business class or anentrepreneurial class in the EIC
.
So we feel like that is theperfect storm.
We have yet to found anywhere.
You either have one or theother.
Like I said, we're not the onlyeic program in the country.
There's over 500 that that arein this silo with us, that run
the incubator edu program.
(43:06):
The reason we do the incubatoredu curriculum is it gives us an
opportunity to be and qualifyfor the national championships
in chic annually.
So our program has been aroundsix years, so we're relatively
young as compared to the rest.
Naperville suburb out ofChicago was the one that started
it.
Texas has been in it a longtime.
We're the pups.
(43:27):
We won the nationalchampionship in year five last
year and it tore some of them up.
I love it.
That's that competitive nature.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
I think you've got an opportunity to maybe get it
this year too.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
We do so last year.
I think if people are stilllistening and watching this and
say, okay, talk more about theEIC.
Here it is.
I'm going back to yourdiscipline.
Instead of talking about whatyou're going to do and what's
going to happen if things gowrong, let's talk about things
that you're going to get to do.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
If you do things right, that's right so, yeah,
maybe that didn't get across thefinish line, but it gives him
the confidence that he can leaninto the next time in order for
his pitch what do you want tochange?
Speaker 2 (44:09):
discipline, discipline, consistent
discipline.
Great that public education isgoing to die because it will not
evolve.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Team is Jim Cripps here with the charge for podcast
.
I just want to tell you I loveyou, I appreciate you listening,
I appreciate you forsubscribing and sharing the
charge for podcast with peopleyou know and you love, because
that's what we're here for.
We are here to share theamazing stories, the things that
people have been through, theways that they were able to
(44:40):
improve their life, so that youcan take little nuggets from
theirs and help improve yourstory and be better tomorrow
than you were today.
I hope that this is the toolyou needed at the right time and
that you find value in theamazing guests that we bring
each and every week.
Thanks so much and don't forgetnew episodes drop every
(45:01):
Thursday.
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