Moving from “Just-in-Case” Education to a Demand-Driven, Industry-Led Model — Paul Lavoie, VP of the University of New Haven

Higher education can’t keep teaching “just in case” knowledge. In an era where technology evolves faster than curriculum, universities must align directly with industry needs — and that’s exactly what Paul Lavoie is doing at the University of New Haven.

In this episode of The TechEd Podcast, host Matt Kirchner sits down with Paul, the university’s Vice President of Innovation and Applied Technology and former Chief Manufacturing Officer for the State of Connecticut. Together, they explore what it means to build higher education that works like industry: agile, applied, and focused on real development rather than theory.

From the creation of the new Center for Innovation and Applied Technology to rethinking how students, employers, and universities collaborate, Lavoie shares a bold vision for transforming education into an engine for workforce growth and innovation that doesn't require reinventing the wheel.

In this episode:

• Why “just-in-case” education no longer delivers ROI for students or employers
• What happens when universities start acting like R&D partners instead of ivory towers
• Why educators need to stop reinventing solutions when proven models already exist
• Why every institution of education should be clear on its unique value prop
• How the University of New Haven is creating students who are “better than ready” for the future of work

3 Big Takeaways from this Episode:

1. Higher education must shift from “just-in-case” to demand-driven, industry-led learning. Paul Lavoie argues that curriculum taught “just in case” students might need it no longer delivers value. Instead, universities must align programs with real industry demand and measurable workforce outcomes.

2. Education must stop reinventing the wheel and instead, leverage proven models to solve common problems. Too often, educators spend time rebuilding solutions that already exist instead of adopting proven models. By learning from industry and collaborating across institutions and states, schools can accelerate innovation and maximize impact.

3. The new Center for Innovation and Applied Technology is a unique focus on the development side of R&D, using students to solve business problems. This hands-on R&D hub is designed to give students real-world experience in advanced manufacturing, robotics, AI, cybersecurity and other emerging tech. But instead of researching these technologies, students will be applying them to solve real challenges faced by industry partners.

Resources in this Episode:

• Learn more about the University of New Haven's Center for Innovation and Applied Technology
• National Center for Next Gen Manufacturing

Find more on the episode page! https://techedpodcast.com/lavoie/

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Episode Transcript

TechEd Podcast Introductio (00:10):
This is the TechEd podcast, where we
feature leaders who are shaping,innovating and disrupting
technical education and theworkforce. These are the stories
of organizations leading thecharge to change education, to
rethink the workforce and toembrace emerging technology.
You'll find us here everyTuesday on our mission to secure
the American Dream for the nextgeneration of STEM and workforce

(00:33):
talent. And now here's yourhost, Matt Kirchner.

Matt Kirchner (00:38):
It's Matt Kirchner on the TechEd podcast,
the number one podcast in STEMand technical education, one of
the top globally, top technologypodcasts. We are literally
ranked in the top 1% of 1% oftechnology podcasts almost every
single week. This episode isgoing to be no exception,
because we've just got atremendous guest joining us

(00:58):
today to talk about disruptionin education and elsewhere.
Every once in a while, I hear aspeaker, I go to a conference,
I'm at an event, and I hearsomebody talking about
disruption in education, and I'mlike, oh my goodness, our
audience needs to hear thismessage. This is exactly that
kind of a presentation that thatkind of an episode. I was at an
event in Detroit, Michigan, nottoo long ago, and today's guest

(01:20):
was one of the keynote speakers.
As a matter of fact, I keynotethe first day of the conference,
and today's guest keynoted thesecond day, and he was just an
awesome, fully energetic,excellent person to kick off
that particular conference. Andso it's my great pleasure,
actually, to welcome to thestudio of the TechEd podcast
this week. Paul Lavoie Paul isthe vice president of innovation
and Applied Technology at theUniversity of New Haven. We are

(01:42):
going to learn all about thatjob. We are going to learn all
about his institution and allabout disrupting higher
education. Paul, awesome to haveyou on and thanks for

Paul Lavoie (01:51):
joining us. Matt, thank you. I'm really looking
forward to our conversationtoday, and I can tell you

Matt Kirchner (01:56):
that it is going to be a great conversation, just
having heard you speak andhearing your message, we're
really like minded in a lot ofways. I know there's just a
tremendous amount that I and ouraudience can learn from you. So
looking forward to getting intothat. I'll tell you the first
thing that caught my attentionbeing, by the way, somebody who
worked in manufacturing foralmost my whole career and had
numerous different titles inmanufacturing organizations, you

(02:19):
were introduced as your roleprior to the one you're in now,
as the chief manufacturingofficer. Okay, so we've heard
that title from time to time,Chief manufacturing Officer of
Connecticut, the entire ofConnecticut. I just thought that
was really, really cool. Solet's, let's start with that
role, if you don't mind it as away of setting up some of the

(02:40):
conversation here today, what issomebody in a role like chief
manufacturing Officer of anentire state? What is that job?

Paul Lavoie (02:46):
Yeah, that's great question. Matt, Connecticut's
the only state that has thisrole, and the role was created
by industry. Industry had hadlobbied the legislature and
lobbied the governor to have tohave somebody at the highest
levels of government torepresent the manufacturing
sector in the state ofConnecticut. You know,
Connecticut's the 48th largeststate, 5445 square miles.

(03:08):
There's 4800 manufacturers. Soit is a it is a vital part of
the economy. And so in 2019 thegovernor created a chief
manufacturing officer positionappointed by the governor, and
the position was designed tosupport and grow the
manufacturing sector. I was thesecond chief manufacturing
officer. Colin Cooper served asthe first, and I was appointed

(03:29):
in February of 2022, and servedrecently until July of this
year, as Connecticut's secondchief manufacturing officer. And
the governor just announced thethird chief manufacturing
officer, kurti Patel. So it's aposition that has shown
tremendous value for the stateand for the manufacturing
companies in the state. And thejob is essentially Connecticut
has written in its statute aManufacturing Innovation Fund,

(03:52):
which is a fund that's used tosupport and grow the
manufacturing sector. And thechief manufacturing officer is
the chair of that fund. So itreally is the chief
manufacturing officer's job isto author the strategic plan for
manufacturing in the state ofConnecticut, and then to
implement programs that supportthat strategic plan. And the
strategic plan pillars are todrive innovation, build

(04:14):
sustainable companies, developtalent and improve
collaboration. And so it wasreally running programs in those
areas all designed arounduplifting manufacturing. And
then the second part of the rolewas, you know, anybody, any
manufacturer, had an issue withanything that had to do with
state government, they couldpick up the phone and call me,
and I'd concierge it for them.
So, you know, we're, we're allwe like to call Connecticut a

(04:36):
one call state. You're only onecall away from the governor and
and we gave manufacturers thatability to have somebody in
government that really caredabout their business and really
cared about their success.

Matt Kirchner (04:48):
I just, I love that concept, right? There's so
much of you think about 4800manufacturers in a state like
Connecticut. And I actually it'sbeen a few years, but it's spent
some time around themanufacturing culture. There
several years. Years ago, I wasin a project around
electromagnetic locks, of allthings, and for whatever reason,
Hartford, Connecticut, at thetime, was kind of a destination

(05:09):
for all of that technology andall that innovation. So got to
see the innovation in thatspace, in your home state,
really, really impressive. Andthis whole idea of having a
chief manufacturing officer aswe record this, we're just kind
of spooling up our gubernatorialprimaries in my home state of
Wisconsin. I think all thestates across the nation could
benefit from this kind ofthinking. And regardless of who

(05:30):
our next governor is, MattKirkner is putting his hand up
for the chief manufacturingofficer of the state of
Wisconsin. That is a really,really cool, really, really cool
job. You know, speaking of cooljobs, you're into some great
things now. As the VP ofinnovation and Applied
Technology at the University ofNew Haven Paul, I'm going to
give you an opportunity to tellmaybe our listeners who are less
than familiar with thatinstitution, a little bit about

(05:51):
the work you're doing in amoment. But to set that
conversation up a little bit, wesay right in the introduction to
this podcast, every single week,we love talking with leaders who
are disrupting the world oftechnical education, STEM
education, in your case, as itrelates to higher education. So
let's start with the premise, dowe need to disrupt the education
model here in the United Statesof America?

Paul Lavoie (06:11):
Yeah, that's a great question, Matt, and I
absolutely do think we need to.
We need to disrupt it. What'shappening is, you know, and I've
worked in industry for many,many years. Then I've worked in
government. Now, moving over toacademia, it gives me this well
rounded view of of what I see tobe some of the ways that we can
improve the way that we trainand inspire the next generation

(06:32):
of leaders. So so our premisehere at the University of New
Haven is, is that, is that themodel of just in case education,
which means is we're going toteach you a bunch of stuff just
in case you might need it whenyou get a job. Doesn't lead to a
ROI for student or a parent. Itdoesn't really lead to a value
equation that makes senseanymore, as the cost of college

(06:53):
continues to rise to amountsthat that are just unsustainable
for so many families,universities, in my opinion,
really need to rethink the valueproposition for students, and
really need to rethink whattheir position is going to be in
the education environment, andit can no longer be education
for education's sake. And I'mnot saying that a degree isn't

(07:14):
important. It's vitallyimportant, but there are other
ways that we can supplement theexperience here of students that
match the needs of industry. Weneed to have industry,
government and academia comingtogether to be able to
understand exactly what productare we producing and who are we
producing it for. We produce aproduct here. Our product is the

(07:36):
next generation of leaders forindustry, and we can't develop a
product and deliver a product ifwe don't know what our customers
want and our customers need. Andgovernment needs to be a partner
in that as well, becausegovernment spends a lot of time
and a lot of money trying tokeep people here, trying to
improve experiences, trying toprovide job opportunities, and

(07:58):
all of those things, but thereneeds to be that Trifecta
partnership between industry,academia and government, and
I'll throw in industry partnersthat need to join us as well. I
consider them part of industry,but it really needs to be
disruptive. And we really needto move from this just in case
model to a demand driven,industry led model. And we need
to take our our campus careercenters and make them into job

(08:21):
placement agencies and reallyhelp kids find jobs and
internships, not just teach themhow to write a resume and do
mock interviews. It justdoesn't. It doesn't work
anymore, and the University ofNew Haven is perfectly suited
for this, and we've just made asignificant investment that's
going to that's going to reallyaccelerate this philosophy that
we have here at the university,to make sure that that the ROI

(08:43):
is is meaningful for studentsand parents

Matt Kirchner (08:48):
excited to get into the R and D park that that
you have that's focused onadvanced manufacturing,
cybersecurity, I think I sawrobotics and automation in
there. Machine learning, biotechwill, and we'll, we'll certainly
take plenty of time to talkabout that, because I think it's
a really innovative approach,Paul to higher education, before
we get to that part of theconversation, just to reflect a

(09:09):
little bit on your last answer.
You know, it was interesting tome. I went, I went all the way
through, kind of the standardeducation model, through, you
know, through my baccalaureatedegree. And was always the one
who was like asking, why are welearning this? Why do I have to
do this? What is this? How doesthis relate to the real world?
Quite honestly, got in nooffense to any of my educational
institutions, all of all ofwhich did a great job overall.

(09:29):
But there was a lot of stuff inthat education journey that I
don't think I ever even thoughtabout after I got done, and I
was amazed to find out, justlike in manufacturing, we worked
so hard to drive waste out ofthat process that now you're
really kind of taking thatapproach to it. If it doesn't
apply, why are we teaching it?
If it doesn't lead to a jobskill or a competency? We have

(09:53):
to rethink whether or not thatshould be in the coursework. And
that's not to say that some ofthe more esoteric and maybe
humanity size. Of education thathas its place, but it should all
be for some purpose, and thatpurpose, by and large, has to be
to create a product. As you say,Not that we're trying to
productize students, but but theeconomic model is such that
we've got employers. We've gotmanufacturers that are that are

(10:15):
ready and willing to take onthose manufacturing leaders and
those those business leaders. Ifwe can create them in higher
education, we just have tofigure out how to do it. One of
the things that you said thatreally resonated me in your
remarks when we were togetherthe last time was this, and by
way of kind of teeing it up whenI came over from manufacturing
into the world of education andstarted talking with instructors

(10:37):
and teachers and professors anddeans and Provost and Academic
Vice Presidents, and, you know,all these folks that we find in
higher education, one of thethings that amazed me was, you
know, I'd run into somebodywho's saying, oh, yeah, we're
working on this curriculum toteach basic ACDC and electric
relay control and motor controland motion control and
programmable logic controllersand robotics and automation. And

(11:00):
we've got three members of ourfaculty that are designing this
next best way to teach all thesethings, and we're engaging our
advisory board. You know? Theyget through this whole 10 minute
presentation, and you look atthem and you say, you know,
other people have alreadyfigured that out, right? I mean,
you don't have to investtremendous resources in creating
all of this curriculum andcreating all these learning
models. Let's, let's invest themoney in an area that hasn't

(11:23):
been figured out. Let's build onbest practices. And so the
statement that you wrote, that Iwrote down from your
presentation, I don't know thatI'm going to get this perfect,
is, you know, we talk aboutproblems and advanced solutions
to problems that have alreadybeen solved. And I was like, oh
my goodness, does this guy getit? Because that's exactly what
I found when I came over toeducation. We're creating new
ways of teaching exactly thesame things in many ways, not

(11:45):
really diverging from somethingthat's already been created.
Reflect on that a little bit.
And how do we drive that wasteout of and how are you doing
that at the University of NewHaven in terms of curriculum
design, coursework, hands on,learning programs and so on.

Paul Lavoie (11:57):
Yeah, sure.
Absolutely. So you know, aschief manufacturing officer, I
visited over 380 manufacturersin three years and really leaned
into them and listened to whattheir challenges are. And it was
pretty apparent early on thatchallenges fall into a couple of
different buckets, right? Imean, we need a talented and
available the lack of anavailable and skilled workforce
was certainly the mostinnovation adoption, right? Not

(12:19):
technology or innovation,because it's a couple of
generations ahead of where weare from an adoption standpoint.
But how do I adopt thesetechnologies? How do I grow my
business? How do I reduce thecost of doing business in the
state? And I got to the pointwhere I would go to a meeting
and people would start talkingabout the problem, and I would
say, we understand what theproblem is. We know what it is.

(12:41):
It's incredibly well defined. Solet's not do that. Let's start
talking about solutions. Andthen as we started talking about
solutions, what I found is thatpeople love to do their own
solution. They love to customizea solution for what they feel is
their version of the problem.

(13:01):
And one of the things that Idiscovered was that there are
hundreds of solutions that arealready out there, that are
developed, that areunderutilized. There are
hundreds of 1000s oforganizations across the United
States. There are 10s of 1000s,or even 1000s of 1000s in your
state right now that are workingon solving these problems, but
yet, what we'll do is we'll sitthere and invent a new program,

(13:24):
or we'll invest in doing our ownsolution, or anything like that.
And to me, it's an incrediblewaste of time and incredible
waste of resources. The firstreflex, the first muscle that we
should be exercising when wehave a problem is, who solved
this problem already? Who outthere already has a solution?
Let me go find it. And it mightnot be perfect, but it might be
80 or 90% of it. And let meengage with them to do that,

(13:47):
because if I can get them to doit at scale, then we can affect
change across an entireindustry. And so rather than you
know where they're saying, youknow, if you have $100 if you
give everybody five bucks, itdoesn't matter. You don't have
any impact, right? You're not,you know, it feels good, but
you're really not doinganything. And so it really
became the mantra became, weunderstand what the problem is.

(14:09):
Let's go find a solution that wecan implement. Let's stop trying
to design. And what designingnew solutions does is just, it
just kicks the can down thestreet. It just, it just makes
the problem longer. It doesn'tactually solve the problem. And
then what you find is when youget two or three or four or five
people in a room that are allworking to solve the same
problem, and they start talkingto each other, the synergistic

(14:34):
effect of that is magical. Theystart saying, Well, hey, I
didn't even think about you dothis. Well, I do this. Maybe we
should partner together. Italways amazes me. I mean, in
America, we love to talk aboutproblems, and we love to invent
our own solutions for theproblem, because we all think
our problems are unique whenthey're not like I said there's
four essential for lack of anavailable and skilled workforce.

(14:54):
Number one, what does thatworkforce look like? Sure, your
workforce may be different thanmine, but if the problem is
still the problem. Problem, andthen how we solve it? We really
need to look at working togetherand collaborating. States should
collaborate. Now, you know,that's always funny. How should
states collaborate when we can'tcollaborate within our own
states, nations within our ownstates to do it, but how can we

(15:14):
get states to do it? But I thinkthat that if we focus on
collaboration within our states,and then start going out to
other states and saying, Hey, wehave a lot in common. What can
we share best practices? Can wework on this together? We'll
grow manufacturing in all of ourstates. It'll it'll all grow
once we start solving theproblem. So that's really the
focus is really around, youknow, stop talking about the

(15:36):
problem and start and stoptrying to create new solutions.
Identify the problem, find asolution that exists, if it's
not perfect, modify it, or workwith the people that are doing
it to modify it, but focus ongetting it done and solving the
problem and moving on to thenext one. And that's that's how
we're going to affect change atscale.

Matt Kirchner (15:53):
A business mentor of sorts, of mine, 20 or 30
years ago, used to have a linethat he said, The best ideas are
stolen. And he meant it. Youknow, if we had to solve a
problem, we wouldn't sit downand say, All right, let's get
the best minds in the companytogether to solve it. We would
go out and see who else hadalready had that problem, who
else had already solved it.
Learned from them, and thenmaybe innovate together in terms
of figuring out, what could webuild on what already exists,

(16:13):
rather than spending ourresources fixing a problem
somebody else's has alreadysolved. So I think it seems so
Elementary and so obvious, but,you know, in theory and then in
practice, it gets socomplicated, you know, I, I
spent a week in China, here inAugust of 2025 I was talking to
the CEO of an E commercecompany, and they had 100 people
working in their company, 100merchandise managers that Were

(16:37):
just managing merchandise onAmerican marketplaces, you know,
selling everything fromhairspray to computers to
furniture. I mean, the wholenine yards into us marketplaces.
And I said, How do you trainthese people where you're in a
cluster of 1000 differentcompanies that were in the E
commerce space? And he looked atme almost like it was a dumb

(16:58):
question. He said, Well, thecluster trains them. We have a
training program here at ourcluster, 1000 companies, a lot
of them competitive to eachother, like directly competitive
to each other, and they allcollaborated on how they train
these individuals to work intheir organizations. It's the
whole idea of a rising tidelifts all ships. And it's like,
yeah, I guess I could try totrain my own people and let our
competitor train theirs. They'reall doing similar work. We train

(17:18):
them together, and you justdon't see that here in the
United States, I think there'sall kinds of opportunities for
us to build on some of thosemodels we see see elsewhere, and
not necessarily reinvent thewheel. Okay, so I know our
audience can already tell thatwe're like minded. And of
course, we get all kinds ofpeople. They don't tune into
this podcast because they wantto hear how people were
educating students 50 years ago.

(17:41):
They want to think about thefuture. That's what we're doing
here on the TechEd podcast. I dowant to take a little bit of a
breather and just give you anopportunity to plug the
University of New Haven a littlebit, give us a little bit of an
idea of what makes it unique andwhy you chose to make this
switch to the VP of innovationand Applied Technology.

Paul Lavoie (17:56):
The University of New Haven was founded in 1920 so
a little over 100 years old.
We're a private nonprofituniversity. And what's really
interesting about the Universityof New Haven is 42% of our
students are first generationcollege students, and 51% are of
color. We're really theuniversity that works right. Our
students come here because theyneed to have a career, and they
need to change their lives, andthey really want to get a great

(18:19):
experience. And so what we do iswe look at at your educational
experience is kind of thefoundation for what it is that
you need to get right. You needto be a well rounded student.
You need to be, you know, welllearned in lots of different
subjects as well. So we have anew president, President Jens
fedrickson, joined about 1820,months ago, and there's been a
building adjacent to our campus.

(18:42):
It's 133,000 square footbuilding that the university has
been trying to buy, andPresident Frederickson bought
the building. It's 133,000square feet, and the vision in
that building is to build aCenter for Innovation and
applied technology that invitesindustry on campus to bring us
real world projects to work withour students in an environment

(19:07):
of RMD Park, for example. So welook at we look at kind of this,
this three legged stool as itrelates to, how do we educate
the next generation of students?
And we start with your basedegree and your education. We're
going to layer on top of thatexperiential learning. So we're
going out to companies andsaying, hey, when you hire an
engineer, what do you train themin the first two years? And they

(19:28):
go, Well, you know, we're luckyif we get somebody that can
think. And then what we do is,this is what we train them on,
boom, boom, boom, boom. And Isaid, Well, how many do you need
a year? They're like, well, weprobably hire 30 to 40 engineers
a year. I said, Well, why don'twe pick 30 or 40 kids at the
University of New Haven?
University of New Haven andtheir junior and senior years,
we'll teach them those skills onyour systems and your projects,
when your people and all ofthat, and so that when they came

(19:50):
out, they're they're going tohave the skills that you need.
And you know, industry islooking at me like, why hasn't
anybody thought about thisbefore? You know, why? Why
aren't we really doing this atthis level? And. Then Matt, what
we did is we took it one stepfurther, and we went out to
industry, and we said, tell uswhat workplace skills kids don't
have, like, you know, do theyknow how to read an email? Do
they know how to respond? Theyknow how to set a meeting

(20:11):
request? Do they know how tocommunicate? Do they know how to
make decisions? Do they what arethese? You know, some people
call them soft skills. We callthem workplace skills here. And
so what are these workplaceskills that they need to have,
and we build those into theculture of our university. And
so you go to a class, and thatclass will have a sticker that
says you're going to learn wecall them the charger 11. We're
the New Haven chargers. So wecall them the charger 11. You're

(20:33):
going to learn this chargerskill. And we're talking about
how we can certify students inbeing proficient at these skills
before they graduate. So you'llget so you'll get a graduate
from the University of New Haventhat has a great, solid academic
foundation that is built withreal experiential learning, on

(20:54):
real projects, with realcompanies, with a set of skills
that industry is telling us thatkids don't have. And you know,
we think the base level for anyuniversity is to make a student
ready at the University of NewHaven. That's not good enough
for us. Ours is that we want tohave students that are better
than ready, that are going tostep into the workplace at a

(21:16):
high level, and then alsoprogress quickly through
organizations, because they'regoing to be better than ready.
They're going to be better thanready to enter that workforce.
And then, of course, we have towrap all of that around an
amazing student experience whilethey're here on campus. Right?
We have to have campus clubs andgroups. We just moved to
division one athletics fromDivision two. We're here in

(21:37):
Connecticut, right? You see thesign behind me that we're
submarine capital. We're alsothe basketball capital the
world. So the University of NewHaven as a division one school,
decides that we're going toschedule our first game against
the University of Connecticutmen's basketball

Matt Kirchner (21:49):
team. Yeah, take on, yeah. Take on, UConn. Why
not? Right?

Paul Lavoie (21:52):
That's our, you know, November 3 on campus at
UConn. That's our first game asa division one basketball team.
And why not, right? Yeah. Youknow, love it. Everybody will
know who the University of NewHaven

Matt Kirchner (22:05):
is game and credit, frankly, to the UConn as
well for, for, you know, signingup that opportunity and helping
you step into the step intodivision one basketball in a way
that, you know, they with a witha world recognized program, and
has been for decade upon decade.
That's actually really, reallycool. I'm going to definitely
tune into

Paul Lavoie (22:22):
that game. Yale has agreed to play us in football,
so now we'll have the Battle ofNew Haven, right with Yale. And,
you know, and you know, SacredHeart is playing us in football,
which is down in Fairfield,which is about 25 miles away.
And so, you know, there's agreat rivalry in Connecticut
around hockey, with fourprograms that all get together,

(22:42):
and we're trying to do that nowwith some of the other schools
as it relates to some of theother sports. And, you know,
create that, create that spiritwithin the state of, you know,
of having fun while we're whilethe kids are playing in the
sports that they areparticipating in. Absolutely

Matt Kirchner (22:57):
that student experience so important,
especially as higher educationgets more and more competitive
due to all kinds of things, notthe least of which is just the
demographics that we've gotgoing on here in the United
States, we're recruiting from asmaller pool of potential
students, which creates allkinds of challenges in higher
education. And so thatinnovation the student
experience, really, reallyimportant. And I want to talk a

(23:17):
little bit more about culture ina moment, not just on the
university side, but on thecompany side, because I know
that's something that you'rereally passionate about as well
as am I. But before we do that,one of the things you mentioned
was this, this R and D parkthat's focused on, I mentioned
the the competencies before, butadvanced manufacturing, cyber
security, robotics, automation,machine learning, biotechnology.

(23:38):
Talk a little bit about the Rand D park in a little more
detail in terms of thetechnologies that you're going
to be delivering, and why youchose those. Yeah,

Paul Lavoie (23:46):
so we went out and talked to industry, and we
really took a look at, what arethe technologies that are going
to be transformational for themfrom as from an organizational
perspective, you know, we'relooking at, we're looking at a
shrinking workforce. We'relooking at how a disruptive
workforce, how tools like AI androbotics and automation are
going to disrupt the way that wework? And we started to take a

(24:07):
look at what is that going tolook like in the future. You
know, I ask manufacturersquestions. You know, we just
welcome the class of 2029 hereon campus. We're out recruiting
the class of 2030 right now.
What's your operation going tolook like in 2030 What's your
shop floor going to look like?
What's AI gonna look like?
What's robotics and automationgonna look like? And they look
at me like they've never thoughtof it because they've never
thought of it because, and totheir defense, they're making

(24:29):
parts, right? They're doingstuff, right? They're making
things. And so I said, Well, wehave to think about this,
because I need to make surethat, you know, at the
University of New Haven, we'reeducating people that are going
to have the skills that youneed, that you don't even know
that you need at this point intime. And so we've spent a lot
of time around what are thoseskills and what are we going to
need? And centers of excellencearound artificial intelligence,

(24:51):
around machine learning, aroundrobotics, robotics and
automation, additivemanufacturing, the digital
transformation, digital. Digitaltwins, digital threads, NDT, non
destructive testing. We're ahuge aerospace and ship building
community here in Connecticutand in the northeast,
nondestructive testing iscritically important. And to our
knowledge, there's no universitythat offers a program around non

(25:14):
destructive testing engineering.
And so we have major aerospacecompanies coming to us like,
this is really cool. We reallywant to engage with you on this.
We think this is a tremendousopportunity. So it really is.
The point on this, Matt is it'sindustry led and industry
driven. It's not, it's not whatPaul avoy thinks, or what the
professors here at theUniversity think industry needs.

(25:35):
It's what industry needs. Andwe're, we're listening to them,
and it really is, to support all4800 companies here in the
state, so big companies willhelp drive the discussion, and
then we have to work withsmaller companies on the
adoption of these technologies,because that's really where,
where most companies arestruggling, right? The two
limiting factors are time andmoney. You know, educational

(25:57):
institutions can help with thetime piece, because we have
labor, we have students. I haveall these kids, right? So I can,
you know, we can help with that,and that's where government has
to put catalyst capital in themarketplace. And we're excited
about working with the state ofConnecticut and other, you know,
other federal entities as well,to say, Listen, how do we
accelerate the adoption of thesetechnologies? So it's an Applied

(26:19):
Technology Center. We're notgoing to cure cancer. We're not
going to invent things. We'renot going to do anything from
the R side of that, our researchside of the R and D equation.
It's really going to focus ondevelopment, and it's going to
focus on the implementation oftechnologies that we know exist
to drive productivity,throughput and success for for

(26:41):
industry in Connecticut, andit's not just manufacturing. It
could be FinTech And sure, techhospitals. When you think of ai,
ai is omnipresent, right? We'regoing to have companies come to
us for AI solutions across anentire spectrum of industry and
industry partners. And thecenter's open is going to be
open to all, but it'll beobviously focused on the major

(27:02):
issues that we're that we'reworking on. And again, I'm out
there telling industry, it's awhite box. Tell me what you
want, and we'll put it in there,and we'll do and we'll develop
for you that next generation ofleader that's going to go where
you're going. It's the WayneGretzky of workforce
development, right? We're goingwhere the puck is. No, I

Matt Kirchner (27:20):
have to compliment you on that mindset.
You know, the a couple of thingsthat just that just stood out to
me as you were walking throughthe way that you're thinking
about that, Paul, the first oneis, you're exactly right. I
mean, you think about how AI isgoing to manifest itself,
whether it's, you know,financial technology, insurance,
technology, manufacturing,hospitality, retail, national

(27:41):
defense, energy. I mean, it is,it's ubiquitous in healthcare.
And we're big believers inteaching. And I love the way
that you talk about, you know,teaching this in a hands on
applied way. You know, teachingapplied artificial intelligence,
physical artificialintelligence, understanding
that, just like your phone has23 smart sensors on it that are
measuring everything you'redoing all day, sending that to a

(28:02):
control center. Control systemthat's called the phone, sending
that information that needs togo to the fog, to the fog,
sending what needs to go to thecloud, to the cloud. And that,
you know, that's the way thatSpotify, for example, predicts
exactly which song I want tohear next, is by gathering all
that information about me, bothin terms of my physical activity
and in terms of of what I'mdoing in the in the digital
world, that continuum existsacross every aspect of the

(28:24):
economy. But to your point, howwe teach that? And I guess,
relative to what's happening inevery sector of our economy,
that becomes really, reallyimportant. And having the
ability to plug and playdifferent experiences as
technology changes is reallyimportant, and especially here
in AI, where, you know, I'm usedto the exponential economy,
where products double in priceperformance every 12 to 18

(28:47):
months. What we're seeing in AIand the speed of compute and the
just the proliferation ofpredictive analytics and so on,
it's doubling in priceperformance every, you know,
three to six months. And so whatthe technology that's relevant
today is not necessarily goingto be relevant in certainly in
five years, maybe not even inthree or four I've been

(29:08):
following really closely, and asour audience knows, have a
financial interest in a in aneffort around what we call
Discover AI more focused on theK 12 space, but students going
through an E Learning course, a16 hour e learning course On
applied artificial intelligenceand what we call the edge to
cloud continuum, and then 12different experiences, 45 hours
a piece in things likeautonomous vehicles and Mars

(29:30):
roversd design and fabricationindustry, 4.0 and the edge to
cloud continuum inmanufacturing. So they get all
this experiential learning, andthey've set it up in such a way
that if one of those isn'trelevant in three years, you
pull it out and plug somethingelse in, and it sounds is that
that's kind of how you'rethinking about this, right?
You're, you've got the sameapproach.

Paul Lavoie (29:49):
Yeah, you have to, I think you have to be flexible
and adaptable and really take alook at, if you're leaning into
industry that should be, itshould be relatively easy to do,
and to make sure that you're,that you're listening. And just
understand and say, Hey, listen,where are you going? Right?
Because the large companies arealready doing this. They're
making these investments.
They're doing this kind ofthey're doing this kind of work.
You know, I think we were at theconference. We were at the Chief

(30:10):
Technology Officer for FANUCsaid the technology is three
generations ahead of what we'reactually implementing, which is,
no The future's alreadyhappened. We're just trying to
catch up to it so and so, Ithink if we focus on the Applied
Technology part of it andimplementing the solutions,
that's going to accelerate thedevelopment of new solutions
too, and as we accelerate theadoption, that'll continue to

(30:33):
keep that flywheel spinning andspinning quickly as it relates
to innovation. So it's, it's,it's an exciting time. I think
it's just an exciting time to beto be alive as these
technologies start to start toreally become more mainstream.
That's

Matt Kirchner (30:48):
exactly the way I think about it. I've got friends
that are reaching the point oftheir career where they're like,
Man, I'm glad I'm retiring infive years, because I don't know
that I could keep up with allthis. I'm like, Are you kidding
me? I wish I was 22 this is somuch fun, but I'm going to stay
on this wave as long as they'lllet me stay on it. It's
absolutely incredible. And I'mglad you mentioned that
presentation last week. And bythe way, we'll plug the
organization, the NationalCenter for next gen

(31:09):
manufacturing, which does justdoes a great job in terms of
advocating for manufacturingtechnology, preparing,
especially those in our two yeartechnical colleges and community
colleges for this kind ofadvancement. So great
conference. I was ClydeDinsmore, by the way, who was
the CTO for for FANUC hispresentation, I'm sure you got
to see some of the amazingtechnology, the way that FANUC
is using vision, the way they'reusing autonomous mobile robots.

(31:31):
And certainly they're not, notthe only ones innovating in
these spaces, but, but that wasa really, really cool way to to
get immersed into some of thisadvanced manufacturing
technology, as we think aboutwhere manufacturing goes and
recruiting the next generationof students. You know, I wrote
another I took a couple notesdown. So, you know, I was paying
attention to your presentationlast week. Paul, I love this

(31:52):
line. And when we talk about,and I hear it all the time for
manufacturers, they're like, youknow, we find these young
people, we find millennials, wefind Gen z's, and, you know, we
just, we can't get them to work.
We can't get them to do it theway that we've always done it.
And, and your line was, youngpeople don't want to work for
you. And I just absolutely lovethat, because I'm 100% in

(32:13):
agreement. I mean, we've builtentire companies around, I think
four or five of them now, aroundpeople in their, you know, 20s,
early 30s. And it's not thatwe're, you know, discriminating
one way or the other, but, man,if you could find somebody with
that kind of energy, with thatkind of focus, with a passion
for a mission. You know, they'renot going to come to work just
to just to crank out parts likemaybe people did in my early
days of manufacturing. Thatdoesn't work anymore, but I

(32:36):
would love for you to reflect alittle bit on for our
manufacturers that listen, andwe have a lot of them now,
you're trying to attract theseyoung people into into in your
organization, and maybe you feellike you're not getting as much
out of them as you as you thinkyou should. The blame is
probably on as much on theemployer, if not more, as it is
on the on the employee. Talkabout how you know, number one,
where's that perception comingfrom? And number two, if I am

(32:58):
somebody working as an employer,especially in manufacturing. How
do I get the most out of thisnext generation of team

Paul Lavoie (33:06):
member culture is incredibly important. Before I
was the chief manufacturingofficer, I ran a manufacturing
business, and our culture wasreally, really interesting and
unique. We were 100% happilystaffed, incredibly low
turnover. And in fact, whensomebody did leave, we used to
do over unders on when they'dcome and ask for their job back

(33:27):
others that would say, well,we'll wait till they get out
there and see what the realworld's like before they come
back here. And just to give youa little insight into that, we
had at Carrie manufacturing. Wehad two product lines, one that
we had always manufactured inthe US, and one that we sent to
China because we were in a racefor the bottom in 2001 in 2017
we re shored that product lineback to the US. So I had to

(33:49):
stand up a brand new productionline. So I had a production line
that was that was around sincethe 1950s so it was run by
senior people, right? Veryexperienced people, ethnically
diverse group of people. Andthen I had to stand up a brand
new production line thatconsisted of very young people
that came out of technical highschools and some of the programs

(34:11):
that we had. So I had thisreally, really kind of strange
vibe out on the shop floor wherethere were two worlds. There was
this 5060, year old world. Andthere was this 2025, year old
world that were out there andand to get to that culture, I
used to tell people there wasonly one thing that changed in
that whole company as it relatedto building a culture where

(34:32):
everybody felt, everybody feltthat they contributed. Well,
everybody got along, everybodysupported each other. And there
was only one thing that changedin that whole culture, and that
was me as a leader. I had tounderstand how I was going to
blend those two environmentstogether and meet the needs of
two diverse groups of people.
But then it came down to to meetthe needs of individuals. And it

(34:54):
was things like simple thingslike we had a. Quality person
who bought a keyboard that litup, right? And I saw the
keyboard, and I said to her, Isaid, Patricia, what? Where'd
you get this keyboard? And shegoes, Oh, I bought it. And I
said, Why did you buy it? Shegoes, Well, it makes me happy.
It makes me happy to work withthis keyboard and things like
that. And I go, well, it makesyou happy. It makes me happy. So

(35:16):
how much did you pay for it,right? I paid $80 I said, Good,
I'm gonna write you a check for$80 I want to buy that for you,
right? And she looked at me,like, what? And I'm like, Yeah,
I want you, don't. You shouldn'thave to pay for a tool to work.
And if that makes you happy,I'll do that. You know, things,
little things like that, where,you know, I had our
receptionist. I called her ourdirector of first impressions.

(35:37):
She loved that title, right? Butthat was the job she you know,
anybody that called that was thefirst impression they got of the
company. And so she was thedirector of first impressions,
and she was happy and bubbly.
She asked me one day if shecould decorate her cubicle. And
I said, Sure. And then I came inon Monday morning, and this
thing was like Zen, liketapestries hanging all over a
cubicle. People that she workedwith coming in the office,

(35:58):
going, what the heck is up withthat. And I said, Well, I said,
it's actually my fault. And theysaid, why? I said, because I
failed to ask one importantquestion, and that was, what do
you have in mind? I said, andquite frankly, I like it because
it makes her happy. I said, andlisten, there's things that I do
for you that make you happy,right? Like, I let you do this,
and you come and you work thisschedule, and they're like,

(36:20):
Yeah, you do that for me. Isaid, Well, we're going to do
that for her, because it'simportant for her to do that.
And everybody realized that onceyou saw them as an individual
and recognize them, that theyall just kind of lifted each
other up and worked together andaccepted everybody's quirkiness
and differences and things likethat, and and we had fun. And it

(36:42):
can you can imagine,productivity levels were really
high. And so when, when peoplecame to me and said, Oh, these
young people, they don't want towork, my response was, they just
don't want to work for you,because they wanted to work for
me. And I know 15 othercompanies out there that they
want to work for because theyare working. I know there's
amazing leaders in their 20s and30s out there running

(37:02):
manufacturing companies that arein environments that are led by
amazing leaders. So so if youhave that attitude that young
people don't want to work, theywon't because they're not going
to want to work for you, becauseyou're not going to be inspiring
them. And so the biggest changehas to happen with leaders of
manufacturing businesses tounderstand, how do they build a
culture that's inclusive andthat sees people for who they

(37:26):
are? Because when now in today'sworld, when you see people for
who they are, they feel valued,they care and nobody cares about
you until they know you careabout them. And so when you care
about them, they're going tocare about you, and they'll run
through walls for you. Andthat's hard, Matt, that's
really, really hard work. But,you know, once it's up and

(37:47):
running and you got the flywheelmoving, you know, you just sit
back and watch this. Thisamazing company do amazing
things. You know, my philosophywas the team comes first. And I
used to tell people that, youknow, do you ever fire a
customer? Do you ever fire acustomer in front of a team
member? If you've never done it,do it and watch what happens to
that team member, because you'regoing to fire a customer that
that team member hates. But, youknow, but if you say the

(38:09):
customer comes first, and you'reputting your team member in this
nasty situation with a nastycustomer, you know, pick up the
phone and say, I don't like theway you talk to my employees. I
don't think I want to dobusiness with you anymore. What
do you think your employees aregoing to do that. So my
philosophy was always the teamcomes first. I'm going to take
care of my team, because my teamis going to take care of my
customers. My customers aregoing to take care of my
business, and the business isgoing to take

Matt Kirchner (38:30):
care of me. I'll give you an example of that.
This goes back a number ofyears. I was running, I won't
tell I won't say, What company,but I was running a large
contract manufacturing company,and we had a a a customer
service person that hadcommitted to a specifically
time, to a due date, with a witha with a client or customer, and
the production line went down.
You know, no fault of thecustomer service person, but

(38:52):
it's, you know, one company, oneteam. It's like, we're all going
to take the hit for this. And sothe customer wanted to come in
and meet with the customerservice person and me to learn
about what the problem was. I'mlike, Yeah, happy to have that
meeting. You're great customer.
Let's let's talk about it. Andthe customer lost his temper in
the meeting and said, yourcustomer service person lied to

(39:14):
me about the lead time. And ifthey ever do that again, I'm
going to come into this officeand I'm going to rip out their
lungs, is what he said. And I'mlike, Well, we're gonna save you
the trouble. We will never lieto you who can, because we are
done doing business with someonewho had threatened to kill a
customer service person. So youcan take your parts and walk out
of here and don't ever call usand and it was exactly the

(39:34):
result. The customer serviceperson was like, Are you
serious? And I'm like,Absolutely, I'm serious. They're
not going to treat you that way.
Now that was a customer that wasprobably half a percent of our
business. If that was a customerthat was 30% maybe you pick a
different opportunity, but, butthat was one of those things
where it's like, no, we're notgoing to let a customer talk to
us like that. So I have livedthrough that, and I have
actually done it more than once,but that particular story is my

(39:55):
favorite

Paul Lavoie (39:57):
one I've done. I've done my second largest customer.
Yeah, yeah. And, and, however,though, and they went to a
competitor, and they camescreaming back from the
competitor, and they became,they became the largest
customer, because they gave usall their business, because we
had delivered on time and doneall of that, but they had made
the relationship so contentiousthat we just didn't feel that

(40:18):
that worth it. And we've, we hada plan on how we would recover
from that. And it literally wassix months they came back to us
saying, you know, we made a hugemistake. We're so sorry. People
at their company got firedbecause they lost a lot of money
when I was dealing with lawyers.
You know, it was, it was a hugebig deal. But you know,
sometimes when you have thecourage to do that, it comes
back to you. It comes back toyou in just ways that that you

(40:40):
can't imagine, and ways to growyour business. But again, it
just really goes back to if youreally want to build a great
culture, just invest in yourteam. Put your team for no put
your team first. Invest in them,understand them, train them.
Give them up. Skillingopportunities. Re skilling
opportunities, but let them knowyou care about them as people.
And they'll, they'll, they'll doamazing things for you. They

(41:02):
really for

Matt Kirchner (41:04):
this next generation, it's about so much
more than money. And I think,you know, in my generation,
coming of age in the 80s, andyou were like, you know, you
wanted him, you want, you wantto make a lot of money. You
would do, you know, all kinds ofcrazy things, if the if the
employer would pay you more. Andnow it's, it's not for so many
young people not to say thatit's not a factor or isn't
important, but, but having amission, being associated with

(41:25):
something bigger thanthemselves, being part of a team
that's doing something big as aas a group of people, you know,
economic success in amanufacturing or any other
business is important, right? Wecan't reinvest in our company.
We can't reinvest in our team,we can't promote people. We
can't create opportunities ifwe're not succeeding
economically. But in the end,it's not about the bottom line,
month in and month out in Ithink in some ways it was 3040,

(41:48):
50 years ago. That's not thecase for this, this next
generation. I think the otherthing that I wanted to ask you
about Paul regarding, you know,whether it's Gen Z and some of
the folks may be coming out oftechnical colleges, community
colleges, four yearuniversities, right out of high
school and so on. You had made acomment last week about their
perception of manufacturing.
What? What is for somebody whois 1718, 1921, years old that's

(42:11):
never been around manufacturing?
What? What is their perceptionof manufacturing?

Paul Lavoie (42:18):
Yeah, you know, we always thought, and I was big,
big advocate of this, that wethought young people thought
manufacturing was dark and dirtyand dangerous. I've heard it
called pale, stale and male.
Your grandfather'smanufacturing. It's the you
know, ask a young kid to grow amanufacturing business and
they'll grow a building with asmokestack. That's not what
manufacturing looks like, butthat's the perception of what it
is. And so we thought that, andso we commissioned a study. We

(42:41):
brought a marketing agency onboard. We commissioned a study
in Connecticut in the office ofmanufacturing, and what we found
blew us away. What we found wasthat young people have no
perception of manufacturingwhatsoever. They think we've
raised an entire generation ofyoung people that think things
magically appear in an Amazonwarehouse and get shipped to
their house, they don't reallyrealize how things are made, or

(43:01):
that things are made, becausethat's not what you know, that's
not what they've been exposedto. And what we find is that
when we show them whatmanufacturing is, and when we
show them what they can make andwhat they can do, they are
flocking to these careers, andthey're really flocking to this
opportunity. So we have thiswork that needs to be undone.

(43:22):
All of this work ofdisconnecting manufacturing to
our young people needs to bereconnected. And they need to
learn and understand how thingsare made, and that things are
made, how they're made, and thepeople that make them to
understand that everything intheir life is manufactured by
somebody you know, you know, youcan't, you know, the technology
that we're doing this podcast onsomebody made all the components

(43:43):
of this, somebody designed it,made it, manufactured it. And,
you know, America made some verybig mistakes with moving
manufacturing out of the countryto other countries, so that we
lose that connection. But, youknow, I think we're starting to
see that tide turn, and we'restarting to see more
manufacturing come back here,but we need to be reaching

(44:04):
middle school kids, elementaryschool kids. You know, first
robotics, VEX robotics, thoseprograms are great ways to
introduce kids to STEM careers,and to introduce them to things
that, things that are made, andhow they're made, and to get
them excited about that. Sothat's some of the work that
we're going to take on here atthe university as well in our R
and D Park is we're gonna havean inspiration zone, which is

(44:25):
going to roll out a red carpetto K through 12 programs to
inspire kids to think aboutmaking. We want to make the, you
know, the next generation ofmakers, doers, inventors and
creators. We need to do it now,doing it. And if you

Matt Kirchner (44:39):
happen to have a copy of that study, we'd love to
link that up in the show notes.
So send that over the study thatyou did where you found the
students don't have, you know,have no perception of
manufacturing, which I think, bythe way, is good news, right? So
it's one thing to get over astigma of dark, dirty and
dangerous, or, you know,whatever you want to call it,
and it's another thing to say,well, we're starting with. A
clean slate, right? We don'thave to change the perception.

(45:01):
We just have to build one. Oneof the things that was important
to me, having spent all my timein manufacturing, when our when
our kids were moving throughhigh school and picking what was
next, I said, Look, you know,whatever, whatever you want to
do after high school, whetherthat's workforce or community
college or, you know, four yeardegree, or whatever is right for
you, we'll help you with that,as long as the rule was that
they had to spend at least partof that time working in

(45:23):
manufacturing. And so my sonworked in a metal Ford shop. My
daughter worked at a bigelectronics contract
manufacturer for a summer, andthen spent another summer
working at a large contractmachining company. And I would
have people that would say tome, Oh, I know why you're doing
that. You want them to know whatit's like to work in a job like
that, so they stay in school andget a degree. And I'm like, you

(45:44):
know, never mind how insultingthat is to somebody who spent
their entire career inmanufacturing. That's not it at
all. I want them to be able to,you know, get to the end of the
day and look over their shoulderat a sea of parts on a dock and
know that they had a part inmaking that. And I wanted them
to get to know just the amazingpeople that work in the plants
and factories across America andpeople. They're good people,

(46:04):
they're hard working people,they're smart people, they're
innovative people. These areawesome careers, and I wanted my
kids to be exposed to those kindof careers so that they knew
what manufacturing was allabout. And so you and I couldn't
agree more in terms of theimportance of exposure, of
recognizing that, yeah, thatpart doesn't isn't just
something, you know, an app thatyou open up on your on your
phone, and it shows up on thefront day, front door two days

(46:26):
later. You know thatmanufacturing is an integral
part, and really the fabric ofwhat made America, what America
is, and the careers are justamazing. I saw a recent study
that said that 80% of youngpeople want to work in tech. And
when they say they want to workin tech. They're talking about
going to work at meta or open AIor Apple or name any, any one of
20 different tech companies. Inthe truth of the matter is, you

(46:49):
look at the technology thatyou're talking about with your R
and D Park, things likerobotics, automation, machine
learning, biotechnology,advanced manufacturing, cyber
security. Make no mistake, techcareers are alive and well. In
the world of manufacturing, youwant to work in tech, you know,
look at manufacturing as anopportunity. And I mean,

Paul Lavoie (47:06):
when you think about it, you know what we're
going to put in the center? Mostof it is technology. It's not,
there'll be a machine shopthere. But we're not, you know,
we're not teaching welding.
We're not teaching CNCprogramming. Plenty of other
places in the state that dothat, I don't need to do that,
right? So go back to the youknow, find what your solution is
and so, and those skills areimportant, but it's, it's really
for us is finding our lane. So

Matt Kirchner (47:29):
absolutely time for probably two more questions
with Paul before we have to wrapup our time with what and what's
been just a fascinatingconversation about the future of
education. So Paul, firstquestion, these, these next two
are ones we love to end everyepisode with. So just about
every guest gets these twoquestions, the first one, and I
know we're gonna we're gonnatalk about something that you
believe about education thatwould surprise other people. I

(47:50):
know, with your background inmanufacturing, your background
as the chief manufacturingOfficer of your state now, the
incredible work you're doing atthe University of New Haven,
what is something abouteducation that you believe that
would surprise our audience alittle

Paul Lavoie (48:03):
bit. I don't know that it would surprise your
audience, but I think it's the Ithink it's the notion of of not
understanding that education isa lifelong activity and and also
understanding that you have thecapability within you to learn
anything, as long as you're opento learning it. And so. So when

(48:25):
it comes to education, you know,if kids today are going to live
to be 100 years old, why is itbetween 18 and 22 we give them a
formal education? Why does thatmake sense anymore? And how do
we look at, you know, how do welook at education as a lifelong
journey where you're alwayslearning. And it doesn't have to
be, you know, it doesn't have tolook like a four year degree

(48:46):
program, right? It can looklike, you know, what are, what
are credentials? Stackablecredentials? How can we continue
to grow skills and things likethat? So the philosophy at the
University here that we have aseducation is, we're just giving
you a launching point for yourcareer, but your career should
include education as an elementof that. And don't ever stop

(49:06):
learning. I don't, don't everstop at all. I mean, I, you
know, you talk about retirementand slow down and all that
stuff. You know, retirements forsome people, I think that's
great. I just, you know, I'mgoing to wear out. I'm not going
to rust out. So

Matt Kirchner (49:18):
Exactly, yeah, I love that. I just, I read the
book out live not too long ago,by Dr Peter Attia. And the whole
idea, that's a correlation, butit's, it's around the idea of
health span versus lifespan. Andwe spent so much time and money
in this country and around theglobe extending people's lives,
you know, even after they'rereally healthy enough to have a

(49:38):
high, high quality of life. Andhe said, it really should be
about being healthy for as longas you can be and, you know, and
focusing on on your health span.
I kind of think about theworkplace as the as the same
thing. I mean, for me, it'slike, I want to be productive. I
want to add value for absolutelyas long as I can. I don't have
some artificial date set out inthe future that says, Oh, this
is when I get to a relax andenjoy my life. I can't imagine

(49:59):
having more fun than I am rightnow, and I just want to keep it
going as long as I can. And Goodlord, willing, I can, you know,
work well into my my 70s, 80sand beyond, and be just like
those Gen Z's that you referenceif we're going to live to 100
let's keep let's keep learning.
Let's keep gaining new skills.
Let's keep gaining new knowledgeand putting it to work. I just,
I just think it's the best timein the world to be a human being
living on the planet Earth. Soone last, one last question I

(50:21):
want. I want to take you back intime and let you give a little
bit of advice to to your youngerself. I want to go back to maybe
the age of 15. You're asophomore in high school, and
you get to give that young manone little piece of advice to
take him through the rest of hisyears. What would that advice
be?

Paul Lavoie (50:39):
You know, I think it's something that I came to
later in life that would reallyhave helped me as a younger
person. I'm a first generationhigh school graduate, and so
there was no like kitchen tablefor me. There was no discussion
you either went in the Navy oryou went to work in a grocery
store. That was those were myoptions, right? And I should

(51:00):
have sought mentors and advisorsmuch earlier in my career. I
should have realized that thatthere were people there that
could help me on my journey andhelp me along, and not try to do
it all on your own and byyourself and things like that.
And, you know, and it took me,it took me a few, you know, a
few different bosses, to kind offigure that out, and to find

(51:22):
people that that believed in me,that that saw in me what I
didn't see in me, and but I hadto be open to them seeing it and
me believing it. And I thinkthat took me a little bit longer
than than I would have liked. SoI would have told my 15 year old
self, find more mentors. Findpeople that can see something in
you that you don't see and seethat with them, and go to them

(51:44):
and, you know, take what theyhave to offer you to help you,
said, to help you growAbsolutely.

Matt Kirchner (51:48):
I love the fact that, you know, you put into the
whole idea of seeking a mentorwho sees something in you that
you might not see yourself,which, to me, I mean, we talked
about about the value ofteachers, professors,
instructors and so on. That'sone of the things we always talk
about in that regard, is is, youknow, uncover and and dust off
that, that hidden skill thatthat young person, or person of
any age didn't recognize thatthey had, or a competency or

(52:10):
ability or an opportunity tosucceed that was that was buried
in them. And you help them findthat really, really important as
a as a mentor. So thatimportance of having mentors and
also being a mentor. We have a15 year old listening to this,
this episode of the podcast, orwatching it on YouTube. Don't be
afraid to ask for help. I mean,there's just so many people that
would willingly, way morewillingly than you could ever

(52:32):
imagine, respond to the call andsay, I would love to help you. I
would love to meet with you.
Don't be afraid to raise yourhand and say, I could, could use
some help. Sure.

Paul Lavoie (52:40):
I mean, one, one thing that you say to somebody
could affect their entiretrajectory of their career. You
don't, you don't know that, butyou should go out of your way to
make sure that you you recognizepeople in that way and in that
manner. And again, you canaffect the entire trajectory of
your future just by one, bypaying just by recognizing and
then seeing in them somethingthat they don't see that, that

(53:03):
when you bring it to theforefront, they see it, and they
they actually move into it.

Matt Kirchner (53:07):
And we are all about here on the TechEd
podcast, getting thosetrajectories off in the right
direction, as high and aspositive and with as much energy
as possible. Really glad Paulthat you managed to do that with
us this this week. I knew thiswas going to be a great episode.
I knew we were going to have alot of fun talking. Of fun.
Talking about disruption inhigher education, talking about
the next generation of theworkforce, talking about how

(53:28):
manufacturers and all employerscan be as attractive as possible
to that next generation oftalent. Going to be really,
really important. And I reallyadmire all the work that you've
done in your career, andcertainly the work you're doing
now at the University of NewHaven as the vice president of
innovation and AppliedTechnology as Paul Lavoy, thank
you so much for

Paul Lavoie (53:46):
being with us, Matt. Thank you. I enjoyed our
conversation, and we're going tolink up the

Matt Kirchner (53:50):
show notes for this episode of the podcast at
TechEd podcast.com/lavoy that isTechEd podcast.com/l A, V, O, I,
E. So check those out. We talkedabout a couple references to
things we're going to link upthere. So so be sure and visit
those show notes. And whenyou're done, as always, we want
to see you on social media. Sowhether you are on tick tock or

(54:12):
LinkedIn or Facebook orInstagram, wherever you're
consuming social media, you willfind the TechEd podcast. When
you do, make sure you leave us anote let us know how much you
love this podcast, and we wouldlove to hear from you. So until
next week. This is Matt Kirkner.
I am the host of the TechEdpodcast. Have a great week, and
we will see you in seven days.
You.