March 13, 2025 • 39 mins
We kicked off the program with four news stories and different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!
The Push for Office Returns—But Is It the Right Move? Clark Lowe, President and CEO of O'Connor Company discussed it with Dan.
X (Twitter) Outage that occurred this week due to a massive cyberattack. If X can go down, how vulnerable are other companies? Kate Kuehn - Vice President of Global Cyber Advocacy at World Wide Technology checked in.
Trump tariffs gut punch farmers, what they can do now… With Arther Erickson – CEO of Hylio.
Study: Children develop body image issues starting as young as 7. What's the best way for parents to help their children have a healthy relationship with food? Kelly Shoup - licensed, pediatric occupational therapist explained.
Listen to WBZ NewsRadio on the NEW iHeart Radio app and be sure to set WBZ NewsRadio as your #1 preset!
The Push for Office Returns—But Is It the Right Move? Clark Lowe, President and CEO of O'Connor Company discussed it with Dan.
X (Twitter) Outage that occurred this week due to a massive cyberattack. If X can go down, how vulnerable are other companies? Kate Kuehn - Vice President of Global Cyber Advocacy at World Wide Technology checked in.
Trump tariffs gut punch farmers, what they can do now… With Arther Erickson – CEO of Hylio.
Study: Children develop body image issues starting as young as 7. What's the best way for parents to help their children have a healthy relationship with food? Kelly Shoup - licensed, pediatric occupational therapist explained.
Listen to WBZ NewsRadio on the NEW iHeart Radio app and be sure to set WBZ NewsRadio as your #1 preset!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZY, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Thanks Nicole Yikes four to one. His team has been
a role in the last couple of nights, and tonight
they hit a stone wall. Well, we'll see how that transpires.
If you're watching the game, you can turn the audio
down of the television and you could listen to us
here on Nightside. My name is Dan Ray. Rob Brooks,
the producer of this program, is back in the broadcast
central headquarters. He's gonna set us up with all your
(00:31):
phone calls beginning after nine o'clock. We will, as the
evening goes on, get onto some subjects where phone calls
will be welcome. I'm going to talk about Boycott's are
the effective, going to talk about this looming government shutdown,
and maybe talk a little about what the peace prospects
are in Ukraine. So we have some pretty heavy topics
later on tonight, and we have some very interesting topics
(00:53):
in this first hour. We're going to talk about the
push for office returns, going to talk about that Twitter outage,
on the Twitter outages of earlier this week. I'm going
to talk about the impact that the Trump tariffs may
have on farmers across the country and also a troubling
report about children developing body image issues starting as young
(01:15):
as seven. But first wanted to introduce Clark Lowe Clark as
the president and CEO of O'Connor Company. Clark, first of all,
what is O'Connor company? What do you folks do? Hey?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Dan?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
We're a national life Thank you so much. We're a
national commercial general contractor. We do work coast to coast,
and we're most known for a remote first workforce.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Remote first workforce. Okay, if you could explain that one
to me, I think I know what it means, but
I want to make sure I do before we start
asking questions.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, so are a majority of our workforce it works remote,
work from home, and we have a number of employees
that also travel. So unlike most general most general contractors,
we are a workforce that works mostly out of our
houses or through traveling. Means.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah. When I when I think about general contractors are
gcs as they're called, I assume that you're on site
and you're watching whatever construction is underway. Explain to me
how you can do that job remotely.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, so we do have site supervision that is on
site at all of our jobs, so that from that sense,
we're traditional from the office sense where we don't have
the traditional regional platform that most other general contractors have.
So all of our support staff, all of our back
end staff, all of our project managers, et cetera, are
(02:50):
all remote remote workforce, and all of our site supervisors
that those those folks all travel.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Okay, So we're going to talk about the push for
office returns and the question is, but is it the
right move now? I have worked remotely since COVID hit
about five years ago. I was told by my team,
my superiors that they wanted me out of the office
so that I could be somewhat more safe and do
(03:21):
my job remotely, which I've done successfully for five years.
But I guess a lot of companies are pushing people
come on back into the office because I guess some
people have maybe taken advantage and when they say they've
worked remotely, they're in Pago pago or a bally bally
or something like that. And what's going on? Is this
(03:43):
a good trend or a bad trend in your opinion?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Well, in my opinion, I think it's a little short sighted. Trend.
If you look at the workforce. When the DoD called
remote employees back recently, the funny thing is when the
empolies went back to work, there wasn't even enough office
space for them to go back because there'd been so
much hiring done over the time that when they so,
(04:08):
then they had to go to these weird swing shifts
where employees were working four hours remote, four hours in
the office, and they had some weird commute and schedules.
I think just the world. One of the things that
we talk about within our company is we feel like
the gravity of the household is starting to take shape,
meaning that the people's homes are starting to become the
(04:31):
gravity of the world. And you know, a lot of
this is like a generational trend as well. Gen Z
our newest work generation in the workforce. That generation spent
a lot of time with parents who were outside the
household because many of the millennial and Gen X parents
were two income households, and so many of these new
(04:53):
generation generational parents. So at least what we see at
O'Connor is there, you know, moms and dads looking for
were one position to be remote so they can maintain
that family element as well.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So you talk about the various federal workers who have
been called back to work and not enough office space.
I suspect Dolge will have something to say about that.
But I understood that there was so much office space
available in Washington that a lot of buildings now are
going to be sold. We have in Boston a lot
(05:27):
of empty buildings downtown, and many people are saying, how
can we repurpose those buildings? So I guess to repurpose
those buildings to condominiums or rental properties. Maybe people would
have to stay. Let me ask you this before before COVID,
I would say that probably ninety five percent of people
(05:50):
worked out of some sort of office location somewhere other
than their home. Fair enough, if I said that, it
was that to be a fair calculation.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yeah, I would agree with that.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So at the height of COVID, let's say, in twenty
twenty and twenty twenty one, what was the at home
or remote percentage of the workforce. I'm going to suggest
seventy five percent.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yeah, that is hard to tell because you have so
much you know, right, like the truckers couldn't be remote.
But I would guess the percentage was precipitously higher, right,
I would guess north of fifty sixty percent.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And of course there are people who, you know, professional
athletes can't work from home. People in hospitals, nurses and
doctors and surgeons, they can't work from home. So what
do you think the new balance will eventually settle at.
It's not going to be ninety five percent from home
if that's what it was at the height of COVID.
(06:52):
Where do you see it settling at, you know, fifty
to fifty What do you think?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I believe what I see remote work as is almost
an extension of technology. So what I believe is people
will start to look for cultures within companies that accept
some level of remote work, right because that will that
will mean the company is a modernized, more forward thinking company.
And then the real problem with remote work is as
(07:20):
it gets as remote work catches on those companies that
refuse to go remote work, they're they're they're hiring pool
gets smaller and smaller and smaller because those folks say
in the Boston area that they can find a job
anywhere in the US, and then the companies looking for
those employees to come in they have less and less
(07:41):
the less to choose from and allows them. This gives
companies larger recruiting pools as well.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Interesting, very interesting, So give me your number. Let us
assume that this settles down. I assume at some point,
depending upon circumstances, these percentages just can all change a
little bit. But where do you think it's going to settle.
Do you think it's going to be forty percent remote
or more? You know, five years out?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I think I think in the next five to ten
years you could see a workforce that's somewhere to be
between fifty to sixty percent remote, especially if you remove
all of the obvious jobs, right, you know, construction framers,
those working on the highways. If you remove out all
those jobs, I think you could see numbers and even
higher upwards than to fifty sixty seventy percent with remote work.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
All right, well, interesting, very interesting analysis. I enjoyed this
conversation because the best part about it, I say, it's
made me think, and it probably has made most of
our audience think. So Clark, thanks for your input. Your
company is O'Connor company, where you're located everywhere?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yes, sir, we got work going on the coast, but
we are headquartered in Pinehurst, North Carolina and the national
General contractor.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Nice part of the country. Clark, appreciate your time talking
to everybody up here in New England. Thank you, and
perhaps we'll check in with you a few months from
now and see what the trend is. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Thanks Dan, have a good one.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You're very welcome. When we get back, we're going to
talk about those Twitter outages. I believe that there were
three that attributed to a massive cyber attack. We're going
to talk with the vice president of Global Cyber Advocacy,
a worldwide technology and expert in information security risk. Her
name is Kate Keen, and we will talk with her
(09:32):
and maybe get some idea if we know where that
cyber attack came from. My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside.
You're listening to WBZ in Boston ten thirty or on
your AM dial. We have Boston's news radio. Also like
to remind you to download the iHeart app, The new
and improved iHeart app, easy to download, even I was
(09:52):
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able to be in touch with Boston with WBZ. Try it.
I think you'll like it. We'll be back on Nightside
right after this.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Well, for those of you who followed these sorts of things,
Twitter had some bumps in the road earlier this week.
Apparently they were subjected to a massive cyber attack, and
I think they had outages three times. I know a
little bit about it, but I'll tell you Kate Keen
knows a lot about it. She's a vice president of
Global cyber Advocacy in Worldwide Technology and expert and information
(10:43):
security risk Kate Keen, Welcome to Nightside in Boston.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
How are you hey?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Good, Thanks for having me, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So what's going on here? Twitter? Worldwide phenomenon? It wasn't
taken down, but it was inter up to what three
times earlier this week?
Speaker 5 (11:03):
It's gone up and down a couple of times, three
that were documented as larger outages. But they've been stating
that they've been under attack for most of this week.
What's going on is called a DDoS attack, which stands
for distributed denial of service attack, And basically, it's a
bad guy that overwhelms a website or a network, flooding
(11:23):
a lot of Internet traffic at it, which prevents users,
legitimate users like the people that want to use extra Twitter,
from accessing the service. So that's what's going on.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
So how can anyone or any group so massively overwhelm
something like Twitter, which Micheur has I assume has such
bandwidth it would be virtually impossible to overwhelm it. I
mean it's like, I don't know, you know, it's like
the difference. You know, Twitter's a fire hose, and how
(11:54):
do you stop a fire hose unless you always got it,
you always have a fire hose. I mean, uh, you're.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Kind of right here. Well I'll talk about who in
a second, but you're right. It kind of is like
thinking about a fire hose and a fire hose. And
remember when you were a little kid, you switch your
finger in the fire hose and you know, in the
hose and then try and back it up exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
So what we're.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Dealing with here is what it kid. It was fun though,
and then you were drinking from hoses too. I don't
think that's allowed anymore these days. But what a d
DOS attack is is basically, if you can imagine, it's
it's it's caused by what are called botnets, and so
basically it's a bunch of infected machines that are directing traffic.
(12:39):
They're all infected by a single source, and then they're
all all of those machines. Traffic is directed at the
website or the organization, like we're seeing with Twitter. So
if you can imagine, you hear about these things of
your you know, machine gets infected and then it's being
used by somebody else. Well congrats, that's the kind of
attack we're dealing with. So what we're looking at is
that some single source or some group basically infected you know,
(13:02):
up to millions of different machines and they're directing parts
of the traffic at Twitter. So it's like an army
of corrupted machines attacking all at the same time.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So how do they defend against that. I mean, even
if they get Twitter back up running, I assume they
could activate their army of infected machines and and get
them going later in the day.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Well, there's a lot of different ways to just to
to basically protect against it. One is, as soon as
you know the IP addressed or that you know area
that the traffic is coming from, you can put up
defenses to stop it or mitigate it or not allow
it to get to your website. That's one thing. Two
is to understand, you know, from organization standpoint, what type
(13:45):
of actors, thread actors, whether they be activists, whether they
which are you know, groups like we hear about like
anonymous who are trying to make a social stance, you know,
and that's why they're hacking criminal groups, nation states or
just individuals. Individual thread actors that have something that they're
upset about. Understand who is in you know, finding your
(14:05):
company appealing from a cyber attack perspective, and then you
need to consistently look at your cyber resilience. So what
does your operational plans look like. We're all dependent on technology.
We make plans for everything else in our life. So
making sure that we understand what tech is really important
in your business, What are your critical business functions and
do you have the right safeguards to protect them against
(14:27):
cyber attack. The issue with this attack is, you know
there's been now three different attributions. I'm not sure we'll
ever figure out exactly who. You know, there's been released
out that it was Nation State and that some of
the IP addresses are looking at Ukraine. That is is
I think a bit questionable. We also have had anonymous
take responsibility saying it's part of something called Operation Dreadnought.
(14:50):
And then originally we actually had a different group come
forward called dark Storm, and they are out of Palestine.
They are actually a pro pal Stadian group that's claimed responsibility.
So because it's so high profile, we've got a lot
of people either pointing fingers or raising hands and it's
going to take a while for us to sort this
(15:10):
one out.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Will we eventually be able to figure it out? Or
will this sort of drift into our memory and a
month from now we'll just kind of throw up our
hands and say we have no idea where it came from.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
Now we will? I mean, So the good news is
is that, you know the world of cyber from a
forensics standpoint is incredibly sophisticated. But it's hard those first
couple of days, and especially you know, as we're still
trying to clean up and you know, filter traffic and
have Twitter get on the other side, before you know,
we can actually take a look at the forensics, understand
the IP addresses and trace back. It can sometimes takes
(15:46):
months or even years to do proper attribution, but we'll
get it done and then we'll figure out exactly where
it came from.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Now, as a as someone who follows this and certainly
is on Twitter and relies a little bit on Twitter,
would make the assumption, with all of the controversies swirling
around Elon Musk, that that would be my first set
of suspects that I would be looking at. I don't
think it would be the you know, sisters of Maria
and Joseph who are sitting in a convent somewhere, you know,
(16:15):
doing this. I'm thinking it's someone who really wants to
go after Elon Musk. Is that a false suspicion or
do you think there might be some legitimacy to that thought.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I think there is some legitimacy.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Like I said, you know, we deal with really four
types of threat actors and the activists, which are the
groups that are looking to make some type of statement,
whether it's politically motivated or socially motivated. You know, this
attack as it's because, as I said, it was what's
called a deed OUs or denial of service attack. They
weren't asking for money, it wasn't ransomware, they weren't going
(16:50):
after bitcoin. It was to make a statement that, you know,
they were able to disrupt something as large and as
important from a social media perspective as Twitter. So whenever
you've got an organization that's dealing with high profile, high
asset individuals, you know, you have to kind of think
about the reputational attacks as well as the ones that
are going to try and hurt your organization from an
operational or financial perspective.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Last question, do we have the federal government, our federal
government looking at this, because obviously what could be done
to Twitter could also be done to our more important,
arguably defense systems.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
We absolutely do. I mean, so the good news is
that I don't know a government agency at this point
that doesn't have, you know, some type of a cyber
command or cyber defense. We have SISA, we have the NSA, FBI,
the Office of National Cyber the own CD, the organization
that I work with as well, which is National Technology
Security Coalition, which is kind of the body of sisas
(17:51):
into Washington. Everybody has a part to play, and you
know everyone is seeing right now that public private information
sharing helping under what are the threats out there? What
are considered the critical vulnerabilities, How do we collaborate to
understand what's coming, and how we defend? Should we get
more proactive and offensive in our defenses. These are all
(18:13):
things that we focus and work on. But the good
news is there's a lot of really amazing people in
Washington working through this.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Well. Thank you very much, Kate. Fascinating information. You obviously
know a thousand times more about this than I do,
but I have learned a little bit in this interview,
and I hope my audience says as well. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Love to have you back at some point anytime. Would
love to be back. Thanks very much for the time.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
You're very welcome, Kate Keen every vice president of Global
Cyber Advocacy. Man, I'll tell you it's a brave new
world out there, folks. Elders Huxley had it right. We'll
be back on night's side right after the news at
the bottom of the hour. We're going to talk with
Arthur Erickson. He's a CEO of a company called Hilo
(18:59):
h yo. We're going to talk about how much of
an impact President Trump's tariffs and his proposed tariffs might
have on American farmers, a very important sector of our economy.
Back on Nightside right.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
After this, you're on Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
All right, I want to welcome to the show Arthur Erickson.
He's the CEO of a company called Heilio. I hope
I pronounced that right, h y l Io? Is that
close to the correct pronunciation, Arthur Erickson? I got fined.
But is it heili?
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Oh, it's it's Helio, but close enough. I don't blame you.
It looks like it's spelled Hilio. So that's perfectly normal
way to pronounce it.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, no, I totally get that. So what is Helio?
But what's the company all about?
Speaker 4 (19:50):
In a nutshell, we design, build, and then sell drones
or on man aerial systems us that automate precision crop inputs. Know,
anything you could imagine a tractor or a helicopter or
an air airplane doing our zones could typically do better, faster, safer,
and cheaper.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Well that's that's quite an idea. So we're going to
talk about the Trump tariffs and how it's going to
hurt American farmers. I think all of us understand farming,
and none of us we're from New England, I mean,
very few of us are involved in it. But we
understand that you have to plan and play in and
(20:31):
then harvest, and then you've got to get product to market,
which is difficult to do, particularly with the variables of weather.
Now we add another layer of variability, and that is
the tariffs. And just described here as a gut punch
to potential gut punch to farmers, Explain to us, you know,
(20:51):
in terms that all of my audience will understand how
that might adversely affect the farming community, which, of course is,
in my opinion onion, the backbone of America.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Sure, yeah, and that's a very good way to put it.
It's another variable, right, And I'm not an economist, nor
do I have a crystal ball, and farmers don't have
crystal balls either, So it is a big unknown as
to just how much it's going to affect them. But
I think generally, as we've seen in the past, we
(21:24):
can reasonably expect them to have some cost increases on
both things like fertilizers and other chemicals that use to
treat their crops. And then also they're going to have
cost increases on their farm equipment, so that's buying new
equipment and also just spare and repair parts for their
existing equipment, because there are steel and aluminum and other
(21:46):
material tariffs that would affect the physical machines that they utilize.
So I think it's pretty safe to say directionally, they're
going to see increased operational costs and capital costs, which
are of course going to tighten their margins and it's
going to be tougher to profit frankly, and so that's
never something that a farmer wants to hear. But of
(22:08):
course most farmers, especially those that are a bit older,
are used to cycles like this, the ebbs and flows
and the ups and downs of the economy, but also
things like trade wars like we're in right now. I
guess I could call it trade war tariff war it.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, So let's talk about that. Okay, what percentage of
farm equipment I would assume with a company like John
Deere Tractor that a big percentage of American farmers get
their farm equipment from American companies off how far off
am I on that observation.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
You're right, You're absolutely right. John Deere is the largest
brand for sure in farm equipment as a single chunk.
Of course, there's other providers like C and H and
Cabota and whatnot. But the point is basically, all these companies,
even American based ones, have such globalized supply chains that
these turffs are probably going to hit a lot of
(23:06):
these traditional manufacturers significantly hard now Helio for example.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
So therefore the mean it's wrong for a second, So
what you're saying is, even though they're buying the tractor,
let's say in Evanston, Illinois, Uh, that tractor has to
be purchased by John Deere or put together by John Deere.
Even if it's manufacturing in the US, it has to
import steel to to create the product.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
So that's going to hug Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
The price of practice is going to go up the exactly.
The other flip side of the equation is if the
and obviously fertilizers and all of that, potentially if they're
coming in from across the border, they're going to be
more expensive. So then the farming in August or September
(23:56):
or October harvests and puts the goods in the market.
I know that America, American farmers feed the world. Is
I understand it? How much more difficult? I mean, people
are still going to need food in other countries around
the world. Obviously, everything they sell with in America, tariffs
(24:16):
don't apply. But if they're exporting around the world, the
potential if they're exporting to Canada or Mexico, for example,
our two neighbors, there's going to be some increased costs there.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah, that's a fair point. It's kind of hard to
track because every day you wake up it seems like
there's a new piece of news in this tariff war.
But I have seen that China and Canada, for example,
are putting retaliatory tariffs on our crop exports, and like
you said, American piece of the world, it's going to
be a significant blow because what it's going to do,
(24:51):
what I think is going to do. The common logic
is that it's going to lower demand for our product overseas,
which means we're going to sell more of it domestically.
Not a problem self, except what that causes is an
oversupplied domestically, right, and then the price of the commodity drops,
So you're gonna see the price of beans and corn
and stuff dropped just because we're oversupplied here. If these
(25:12):
other countries are gonna be buying it now, they still
might buy it despite the care because, as you pointed out,
people still need to eat. But it just depends. I
think there's going to be lower demand though directionally.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So this I think you have sketched out the problem
that the farmers are going to face. And the farmers
I assume have planned, if not planted their crops already
in many parts of the country.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Absolutely correct. Yes, they're already starting in generally in the Midwest.
Actually they might be still not in the ground in
a lot of states that they're but in the South
they've definitely started. I'm down here in Texas, I know
we've already started planting down.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Here, right. But even let's say states like you know,
Kancers to Nebraska, where maybe they haven't planted, they had
to purchase in advance. Oh for sure, yeah, those those products.
So so so let's take worst case scenario, and let's
say that this trade war continues and that the politicians
(26:15):
on both sides of the border don't come to their
senses and say, wait a second, Hold, let's let's chick,
let's cool this down. Is that going to put some
farms out of business as a consequence? I mean that
that's that's what I am most concerned about.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Well, the US farm infrastructure is heavily subsidized, and so
I think generally speaking, the answer would be no. There
would be programs to offer these farmers, you know, crop
insurance or something of that nature. Not not not that directly,
(26:54):
but some sort of safety safety net right for things
like this, subsid these grants, loans, etc. So I think
the idea is not for them to have a hard
landing like that. But you never know, and it's hard
to say that there wouldn't be at least, you know,
a handful of farms that might go under, But how
many more than normal in a given year. I couldn't
(27:16):
speak to that.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
So then my question is how critical does your company
and the products and the services that you provide at Helio.
I assume that makes your company a little bit more
important to farmers in some times that one can describe
as being pretty critical.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Yeah, that's without just shamelessly plugging Helio too much. If
we just speak generally about the concept of precision agriculture.
That's the name of the game. That's the playbook that
farmers need to roll out. Now, it's pretty straightforward. If
your margins are tighter, if inputs are more expensive, you
need to stretch a buck further. And how do you
do that. That's by using acronomic insights, so satellite imagery
(28:02):
or drone imagery to identify problem areas and then using
precision tools like helios, spray drones or another companies or
like a John Deere seems very tractor for example, to
significantly reduce your input cost by only targeting the specific
problem areas. So that's something our technology and precision ad
technology in general can help the farmer with and help
(28:23):
them whether the storm and transition to whatever whatever comes
after this, which I think is going to be hopefully
a much smarter strategic approach to farming in general. I
think this or deal, if you want to call it,
that is going to force that innovation.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah. Well, they say that necessity is the mother of invention,
so I think.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
That's absolutely right, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
What you just said. I really enjoyed the conversation. I'm
not a farmer, never spent much time on farms, but
I admire the men and women who farm in this
country and put the food in our family's tables. They
get up really early in the morning, they work hard
during the some of the toughest months of the year,
and none of them are turning out as individual families
(29:08):
to be millionaires. We all should be greatly indebted to them,
as well as the work they do that feeds up
people in other parts of the world where farming is
not as efficient as it is in America. So, Arthur Ericson,
I appreciate you're giving us an insight into the plate
that American farmers and the uncertainty American farmers are dealing
with at this particular month, and hopefully that could get
squirt away real soon. I appreciate your time. You're a
(29:30):
great guest.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Thank you, Yes, sir, likewise, appreciate your time. Have a
great evening, Locoal okay you too.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
We go back our final guest this hour tonight. In
this edition of the Nice Side News Update, we're going
to look at a study which shows that children, young children,
I mean as young as seven are developing body image
issues and what is the best way for parents to
help these children have a healthy relationship with food and
(29:56):
with who they are. We're going to talk with Kelly Shoop,
she's a licensed to PAM occupational therapist. Be back on Nightside.
This is an important topics. Stay with us. We'll get
to some topics later on tonight. This evening where you
can participate as a caller. We're going to start off
talking about boycotts. I think we've got an interesting hour
at nine o'clock and we will be able to get
(30:18):
a bunch of perspectives. We'll be right back on night
Side now.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Bent to Dan Way live from the Window World to
Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I'd like to welcome Kelly shoe She's a licensed pediatric
occupational therapist. Kelly Shoope, Welcome to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 6 (30:37):
Thank you? I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
We are going to talk about kids developing body image issues.
I'm stunned kids the age of seven. We always thought
this was something that you know, teenage girls were dealing
with when they were thirteen or fourteen. What's going on
that now we have kids at the age of seven
(31:00):
second grade deal with body image issues.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
This, yes, it's it's well, it's really frightening. I think
it's a combination of a couple things. I think it's
that that younger kids have access to the Internet, they
have access to some even TikTok, or they are spending
I mean, as a society, we are spending more time
(31:26):
on screens, and so that also means more TV billboards, movies, ads,
and those all show an idealized body, right, the ideal body,
what would that look like? And the programming in the
country is that this is what the ideal body looks like.
(31:47):
So younger kids are understanding, oh, mind, doesn't look like that.
And we also have, you know, a nation that's over
overweight and obese, and so kids are figuring out why
my body doesn't look anything like what's on this commercial.
And friends, classmates, people, they're cyberbullying over iPads with young
(32:13):
young kids. In fact, I was with a school last
week talking to a group of teachers and they're third graders.
The third grade girls are so mean to each other.
You're fat, you're skinny, your legs are fat. And the
teachers were like, they hadn't telling me, they hadn't seen
anything like it before.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Okay, So my question is if this is a national trend,
which apparently it is. We can blame the Internet, we
can blame TikTok, we can blame all of these sites.
The question is what is there within our lives as
a country or as a nation which may offset that.
(32:58):
It seems to me that in a prior time, when
I was growing up and I'm a baby boomer, we
didn't have the Internet or anything like that. You still
had people, you know, in advertisements in magazines and in
newspapers who looked, you know, otherworldly, and they but they
(33:21):
were things that offset So, for example, and I don't
want to sound old fashioned here, but one of the
things that we have given up on in America is religion.
And I just have to wonder, and I don't want
to sound like because I'm not a religious freak here, okay,
but is the absence of some form of organized religion,
(33:43):
or the diminution of organized religion, and in some cases
rightfully so, we're the epicenter of the pedophile priest pandemic.
Is that something that should be there to help us
think more broadly about helping other people and they were
all different, we're all God's children, or or is that
just so past eight it's it's time has has gone.
Speaker 6 (34:06):
No, it should absolutely be a part of it, you know.
And in the in the piece of religion and spirituality,
they're fasting, and so that's another thing that has kind
of gone by the wayside.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
Right.
Speaker 6 (34:18):
Everybody's like, I want what I want when I want it,
and door Dash can bring it or Uber eats or
I can have my music on Spotify. I only watch
what I want on net. Yes, and so we need more, Yeah,
we need more movement, more exercise, like take a walk
down to the you know, the corner of the street
instead of riding an electric scooter or the bikes. Now
(34:42):
that our battery operated, just I cringe. I'm like, the
bike is supposed to be for exercise, for getting your
heart rate, at building your muscles, your strength, and when
they put a battery on it, it does all the
work for you. So there's no point. So we're so
far off the mark in many ways that it's it's frightening,
and it's really you know, I just feel sad for
(35:04):
these kids who are bullied, Sad for these kids who
at such young ages steel like they are flawed and
imperfect and have these body problems when it should not
be that way.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And of course one of the things that this has
led to, and it doesn't necessarily mean but there are
more kids who are who are committing suicide. There's yes,
it seems to me that there are more kids who
are disappearing and some you have know. I mean, now,
maybe the argument is, well, we cover it more because
in the old days it happened, but we didn't know
(35:38):
about it. And the media now is so pervasive. Uh
there's you know, there's television everywhere, there's cameras everywhere, there's uh,
you know, TMZ. Just we are we just kind of
hit it in a bad direction, I think.
Speaker 6 (35:55):
And for sure, yes, and and those numbers, yes, depression
and anxiety suicide again, those are happening younger and younger,
and in astronomical numbers. And it's part of it's the comparison.
But part of it is, you know, it's the ultra
(36:16):
processed food that isn't giving our bodies nutrients. It's the
lack of sleep, it's the frenzied pace that parents have.
These kids. They just go NonStop school all day, soccer, piano, basketball,
birthday parties all weekend. And the parents will say to me,
I'm so tired from the weekend, and I'm like, yes,
and you've got a fully formed brain and body. Imagine
(36:40):
how your four year old feels. They're just white.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
So what So okay, it sounds to me like you
have painted a portrait of a picture that is so complex.
We are beyond recovery. It sounds what can we do
to recover? I mean, we could preach, you know, slow
it down here and spell the There has to be
some way in which we can convince people to change
(37:06):
change habits and have and change attitudes. What can be done?
I have a talk here that I'm on five five
nights a week, four hours a night. If there's something
that I could do, please help me, help me strut Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:19):
So I think actually the good news is is we
can take actionable steps that will immediately have an impact.
And so for all parents who are hearing this, you
can make changes tomorrow. You can you know, get rid
of the ultra processed food. You can model, you know,
(37:39):
talking well about your own body. And so I'm encouraging parents.
Don't you know, don't don't comment that you are fat
or you feel terrible. In these genes we talk about
no food is bad or good it's all neutral. Food
is fuel for our body. And we talk about being
(38:00):
fit and being healthy, so not skinny, not fat, not
you know, pudgy, all of these words that, Kelly.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
How if we do this, Kelly, we're running out of
time here as I head to us at nine o'clock hour.
Let me have my producer get in touch with you.
Come on back and let's do an hour some night
on the air.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (38:23):
I would love that.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, and you talk to them and let them explain
what's going on. Okay. It's not easy. It's not easy.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
It's not easy.
Speaker 6 (38:32):
You can do it with hell.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Okay, if folks want to get in touch with you
in the meantime, is there somewhere you can direct us.
Speaker 6 (38:42):
Yeah, you can find me at my website www dot
Kelly k Shoop s h o u p dot com
or at Kelly k shoot for Instagram. I'm on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Okay, Will we will want to an hour in the
next couple of weeks, depending up on your schedule, and
I'll get a lot of folks listening to what you
have to say because you make a lot of sense
to me, and there are a lot of folks in
the profession that that that, don't you. You you you
have connected with me and we'll connect again. Thank you
(39:16):
so much, Kelly, thank you.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Okay, we'll talk soon back right after the nine o'clock
news on Nightside, and we are going to talk in
the nine o'clock hour about boycotts. I got a real
couple of thoughts and I hope you do as well.
We'll be back on night Side.
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZY, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Thanks Nicole Yikes four to one. His team has been
a role in the last couple of nights, and tonight
they hit a stone wall. Well, we'll see how that transpires.
If you're watching the game, you can turn the audio
down of the television and you could listen to us
here on Nightside. My name is Dan Ray. Rob Brooks,
the producer of this program, is back in the broadcast
central headquarters. He's gonna set us up with all your
(00:31):
phone calls beginning after nine o'clock. We will, as the
evening goes on, get onto some subjects where phone calls
will be welcome. I'm going to talk about Boycott's are
the effective, going to talk about this looming government shutdown,
and maybe talk a little about what the peace prospects
are in Ukraine. So we have some pretty heavy topics
later on tonight, and we have some very interesting topics
(00:53):
in this first hour. We're going to talk about the
push for office returns, going to talk about that Twitter outage,
on the Twitter outages of earlier this week. I'm going
to talk about the impact that the Trump tariffs may
have on farmers across the country and also a troubling
report about children developing body image issues starting as young
(01:15):
as seven. But first wanted to introduce Clark Lowe Clark as
the president and CEO of O'Connor Company. Clark, first of all,
what is O'Connor company? What do you folks do? Hey?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Dan?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
We're a national life Thank you so much. We're a
national commercial general contractor. We do work coast to coast,
and we're most known for a remote first workforce.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Remote first workforce. Okay, if you could explain that one
to me, I think I know what it means, but
I want to make sure I do before we start
asking questions.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, so are a majority of our workforce it works remote,
work from home, and we have a number of employees
that also travel. So unlike most general most general contractors,
we are a workforce that works mostly out of our
houses or through traveling. Means.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah. When I when I think about general contractors are
gcs as they're called, I assume that you're on site
and you're watching whatever construction is underway. Explain to me
how you can do that job remotely.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, so we do have site supervision that is on
site at all of our jobs, so that from that sense,
we're traditional from the office sense where we don't have
the traditional regional platform that most other general contractors have.
So all of our support staff, all of our back
end staff, all of our project managers, et cetera, are
(02:50):
all remote remote workforce, and all of our site supervisors
that those those folks all travel.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Okay, So we're going to talk about the push for
office returns and the question is, but is it the
right move now? I have worked remotely since COVID hit
about five years ago. I was told by my team,
my superiors that they wanted me out of the office
so that I could be somewhat more safe and do
(03:21):
my job remotely, which I've done successfully for five years.
But I guess a lot of companies are pushing people
come on back into the office because I guess some
people have maybe taken advantage and when they say they've
worked remotely, they're in Pago pago or a bally bally
or something like that. And what's going on? Is this
(03:43):
a good trend or a bad trend in your opinion?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Well, in my opinion, I think it's a little short sighted. Trend.
If you look at the workforce. When the DoD called
remote employees back recently, the funny thing is when the
empolies went back to work, there wasn't even enough office
space for them to go back because there'd been so
much hiring done over the time that when they so,
(04:08):
then they had to go to these weird swing shifts
where employees were working four hours remote, four hours in
the office, and they had some weird commute and schedules.
I think just the world. One of the things that
we talk about within our company is we feel like
the gravity of the household is starting to take shape,
meaning that the people's homes are starting to become the
(04:31):
gravity of the world. And you know, a lot of
this is like a generational trend as well. Gen Z
our newest work generation in the workforce. That generation spent
a lot of time with parents who were outside the
household because many of the millennial and Gen X parents
were two income households, and so many of these new
(04:53):
generation generational parents. So at least what we see at
O'Connor is there, you know, moms and dads looking for
were one position to be remote so they can maintain
that family element as well.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So you talk about the various federal workers who have
been called back to work and not enough office space.
I suspect Dolge will have something to say about that.
But I understood that there was so much office space
available in Washington that a lot of buildings now are
going to be sold. We have in Boston a lot
(05:27):
of empty buildings downtown, and many people are saying, how
can we repurpose those buildings? So I guess to repurpose
those buildings to condominiums or rental properties. Maybe people would
have to stay. Let me ask you this before before COVID,
I would say that probably ninety five percent of people
(05:50):
worked out of some sort of office location somewhere other
than their home. Fair enough, if I said that, it
was that to be a fair calculation.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yeah, I would agree with that.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
So at the height of COVID, let's say, in twenty
twenty and twenty twenty one, what was the at home
or remote percentage of the workforce. I'm going to suggest
seventy five percent.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yeah, that is hard to tell because you have so
much you know, right, like the truckers couldn't be remote.
But I would guess the percentage was precipitously higher, right,
I would guess north of fifty sixty percent.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And of course there are people who, you know, professional
athletes can't work from home. People in hospitals, nurses and
doctors and surgeons, they can't work from home. So what
do you think the new balance will eventually settle at.
It's not going to be ninety five percent from home
if that's what it was at the height of COVID.
(06:52):
Where do you see it settling at, you know, fifty
to fifty What do you think?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I believe what I see remote work as is almost
an extension of technology. So what I believe is people
will start to look for cultures within companies that accept
some level of remote work, right because that will that
will mean the company is a modernized, more forward thinking company.
And then the real problem with remote work is as
(07:20):
it gets as remote work catches on those companies that
refuse to go remote work, they're they're they're hiring pool
gets smaller and smaller and smaller because those folks say
in the Boston area that they can find a job
anywhere in the US, and then the companies looking for
those employees to come in they have less and less
(07:41):
the less to choose from and allows them. This gives
companies larger recruiting pools as well.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Interesting, very interesting, So give me your number. Let us
assume that this settles down. I assume at some point,
depending upon circumstances, these percentages just can all change a
little bit. But where do you think it's going to settle.
Do you think it's going to be forty percent remote
or more? You know, five years out?
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I think I think in the next five to ten
years you could see a workforce that's somewhere to be
between fifty to sixty percent remote, especially if you remove
all of the obvious jobs, right, you know, construction framers,
those working on the highways. If you remove out all
those jobs, I think you could see numbers and even
higher upwards than to fifty sixty seventy percent with remote work.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
All right, well, interesting, very interesting analysis. I enjoyed this
conversation because the best part about it, I say, it's
made me think, and it probably has made most of
our audience think. So Clark, thanks for your input. Your
company is O'Connor company, where you're located everywhere?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yes, sir, we got work going on the coast, but
we are headquartered in Pinehurst, North Carolina and the national
General contractor.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Nice part of the country. Clark, appreciate your time talking
to everybody up here in New England. Thank you, and
perhaps we'll check in with you a few months from
now and see what the trend is. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Thanks Dan, have a good one.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
You're very welcome. When we get back, we're going to
talk about those Twitter outages. I believe that there were
three that attributed to a massive cyber attack. We're going
to talk with the vice president of Global Cyber Advocacy,
a worldwide technology and expert in information security risk. Her
name is Kate Keen, and we will talk with her
(09:32):
and maybe get some idea if we know where that
cyber attack came from. My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside.
You're listening to WBZ in Boston ten thirty or on
your AM dial. We have Boston's news radio. Also like
to remind you to download the iHeart app, The new
and improved iHeart app, easy to download, even I was
(09:52):
able to do it, and you can set WBZ Radio
as your first presets. So we will be with you
wherever you in this whole wide world. Just with simply
a touch of a button on that app, you'll be
able to be in touch with Boston with WBZ. Try it.
I think you'll like it. We'll be back on Nightside
right after this.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Well, for those of you who followed these sorts of things,
Twitter had some bumps in the road earlier this week.
Apparently they were subjected to a massive cyber attack, and
I think they had outages three times. I know a
little bit about it, but I'll tell you Kate Keen
knows a lot about it. She's a vice president of
Global cyber Advocacy in Worldwide Technology and expert and information
(10:43):
security risk Kate Keen, Welcome to Nightside in Boston.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
How are you hey?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Good, Thanks for having me, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So what's going on here? Twitter? Worldwide phenomenon? It wasn't
taken down, but it was inter up to what three
times earlier this week?
Speaker 5 (11:03):
It's gone up and down a couple of times, three
that were documented as larger outages. But they've been stating
that they've been under attack for most of this week.
What's going on is called a DDoS attack, which stands
for distributed denial of service attack, And basically, it's a
bad guy that overwhelms a website or a network, flooding
(11:23):
a lot of Internet traffic at it, which prevents users,
legitimate users like the people that want to use extra Twitter,
from accessing the service. So that's what's going on.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
So how can anyone or any group so massively overwhelm
something like Twitter, which Micheur has I assume has such
bandwidth it would be virtually impossible to overwhelm it. I
mean it's like, I don't know, you know, it's like
the difference. You know, Twitter's a fire hose, and how
(11:54):
do you stop a fire hose unless you always got it,
you always have a fire hose. I mean, uh, you're.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Kind of right here. Well I'll talk about who in
a second, but you're right. It kind of is like
thinking about a fire hose and a fire hose. And
remember when you were a little kid, you switch your
finger in the fire hose and you know, in the
hose and then try and back it up exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
So what we're.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Dealing with here is what it kid. It was fun though,
and then you were drinking from hoses too. I don't
think that's allowed anymore these days. But what a d
DOS attack is is basically, if you can imagine, it's
it's it's caused by what are called botnets, and so
basically it's a bunch of infected machines that are directing traffic.
(12:39):
They're all infected by a single source, and then they're
all all of those machines. Traffic is directed at the
website or the organization, like we're seeing with Twitter. So
if you can imagine, you hear about these things of
your you know, machine gets infected and then it's being
used by somebody else. Well congrats, that's the kind of
attack we're dealing with. So what we're looking at is
that some single source or some group basically infected you know,
(13:02):
up to millions of different machines and they're directing parts
of the traffic at Twitter. So it's like an army
of corrupted machines attacking all at the same time.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So how do they defend against that. I mean, even
if they get Twitter back up running, I assume they
could activate their army of infected machines and and get
them going later in the day.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Well, there's a lot of different ways to just to
to basically protect against it. One is, as soon as
you know the IP addressed or that you know area
that the traffic is coming from, you can put up
defenses to stop it or mitigate it or not allow
it to get to your website. That's one thing. Two
is to understand, you know, from organization standpoint, what type
(13:45):
of actors, thread actors, whether they be activists, whether they
which are you know, groups like we hear about like
anonymous who are trying to make a social stance, you know,
and that's why they're hacking criminal groups, nation states or
just individuals. Individual thread actors that have something that they're
upset about. Understand who is in you know, finding your
(14:05):
company appealing from a cyber attack perspective, and then you
need to consistently look at your cyber resilience. So what
does your operational plans look like. We're all dependent on technology.
We make plans for everything else in our life. So
making sure that we understand what tech is really important
in your business, What are your critical business functions and
do you have the right safeguards to protect them against
(14:27):
cyber attack. The issue with this attack is, you know
there's been now three different attributions. I'm not sure we'll
ever figure out exactly who. You know, there's been released
out that it was Nation State and that some of
the IP addresses are looking at Ukraine. That is is
I think a bit questionable. We also have had anonymous
take responsibility saying it's part of something called Operation Dreadnought.
(14:50):
And then originally we actually had a different group come
forward called dark Storm, and they are out of Palestine.
They are actually a pro pal Stadian group that's claimed responsibility.
So because it's so high profile, we've got a lot
of people either pointing fingers or raising hands and it's
going to take a while for us to sort this
(15:10):
one out.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Will we eventually be able to figure it out? Or
will this sort of drift into our memory and a
month from now we'll just kind of throw up our
hands and say we have no idea where it came from.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
Now we will? I mean, So the good news is
is that, you know the world of cyber from a
forensics standpoint is incredibly sophisticated. But it's hard those first
couple of days, and especially you know, as we're still
trying to clean up and you know, filter traffic and
have Twitter get on the other side, before you know,
we can actually take a look at the forensics, understand
the IP addresses and trace back. It can sometimes takes
(15:46):
months or even years to do proper attribution, but we'll
get it done and then we'll figure out exactly where
it came from.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Now, as a as someone who follows this and certainly
is on Twitter and relies a little bit on Twitter,
would make the assumption, with all of the controversies swirling
around Elon Musk, that that would be my first set
of suspects that I would be looking at. I don't
think it would be the you know, sisters of Maria
and Joseph who are sitting in a convent somewhere, you know,
(16:15):
doing this. I'm thinking it's someone who really wants to
go after Elon Musk. Is that a false suspicion or
do you think there might be some legitimacy to that thought.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I think there is some legitimacy.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
Like I said, you know, we deal with really four
types of threat actors and the activists, which are the
groups that are looking to make some type of statement,
whether it's politically motivated or socially motivated. You know, this
attack as it's because, as I said, it was what's
called a deed OUs or denial of service attack. They
weren't asking for money, it wasn't ransomware, they weren't going
(16:50):
after bitcoin. It was to make a statement that, you know,
they were able to disrupt something as large and as
important from a social media perspective as Twitter. So whenever
you've got an organization that's dealing with high profile, high
asset individuals, you know, you have to kind of think
about the reputational attacks as well as the ones that
are going to try and hurt your organization from an
operational or financial perspective.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Last question, do we have the federal government, our federal
government looking at this, because obviously what could be done
to Twitter could also be done to our more important,
arguably defense systems.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
We absolutely do. I mean, so the good news is
that I don't know a government agency at this point
that doesn't have, you know, some type of a cyber
command or cyber defense. We have SISA, we have the NSA, FBI,
the Office of National Cyber the own CD, the organization
that I work with as well, which is National Technology
Security Coalition, which is kind of the body of sisas
(17:51):
into Washington. Everybody has a part to play, and you
know everyone is seeing right now that public private information
sharing helping under what are the threats out there? What
are considered the critical vulnerabilities, How do we collaborate to
understand what's coming, and how we defend? Should we get
more proactive and offensive in our defenses. These are all
(18:13):
things that we focus and work on. But the good
news is there's a lot of really amazing people in
Washington working through this.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Well. Thank you very much, Kate. Fascinating information. You obviously
know a thousand times more about this than I do,
but I have learned a little bit in this interview,
and I hope my audience says as well. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Love to have you back at some point anytime. Would
love to be back. Thanks very much for the time.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
You're very welcome, Kate Keen every vice president of Global
Cyber Advocacy. Man, I'll tell you it's a brave new
world out there, folks. Elders Huxley had it right. We'll
be back on night's side right after the news at
the bottom of the hour. We're going to talk with
Arthur Erickson. He's a CEO of a company called Hilo
(18:59):
h yo. We're going to talk about how much of
an impact President Trump's tariffs and his proposed tariffs might
have on American farmers, a very important sector of our economy.
Back on Nightside right.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
After this, you're on Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZ,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
All right, I want to welcome to the show Arthur Erickson.
He's the CEO of a company called Heilio. I hope
I pronounced that right, h y l Io? Is that
close to the correct pronunciation, Arthur Erickson? I got fined.
But is it heili?
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Oh, it's it's Helio, but close enough. I don't blame you.
It looks like it's spelled Hilio. So that's perfectly normal
way to pronounce it.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, no, I totally get that. So what is Helio?
But what's the company all about?
Speaker 4 (19:50):
In a nutshell, we design, build, and then sell drones
or on man aerial systems us that automate precision crop inputs. Know,
anything you could imagine a tractor or a helicopter or
an air airplane doing our zones could typically do better, faster, safer,
and cheaper.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Well that's that's quite an idea. So we're going to
talk about the Trump tariffs and how it's going to
hurt American farmers. I think all of us understand farming,
and none of us we're from New England, I mean,
very few of us are involved in it. But we
understand that you have to plan and play in and
(20:31):
then harvest, and then you've got to get product to market,
which is difficult to do, particularly with the variables of weather.
Now we add another layer of variability, and that is
the tariffs. And just described here as a gut punch
to potential gut punch to farmers, Explain to us, you know,
(20:51):
in terms that all of my audience will understand how
that might adversely affect the farming community, which, of course is,
in my opinion onion, the backbone of America.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Sure, yeah, and that's a very good way to put it.
It's another variable, right, And I'm not an economist, nor
do I have a crystal ball, and farmers don't have
crystal balls either, So it is a big unknown as
to just how much it's going to affect them. But
I think generally, as we've seen in the past, we
(21:24):
can reasonably expect them to have some cost increases on
both things like fertilizers and other chemicals that use to
treat their crops. And then also they're going to have
cost increases on their farm equipment, so that's buying new
equipment and also just spare and repair parts for their
existing equipment, because there are steel and aluminum and other
(21:46):
material tariffs that would affect the physical machines that they utilize.
So I think it's pretty safe to say directionally, they're
going to see increased operational costs and capital costs, which
are of course going to tighten their margins and it's
going to be tougher to profit frankly, and so that's
never something that a farmer wants to hear. But of
(22:08):
course most farmers, especially those that are a bit older,
are used to cycles like this, the ebbs and flows
and the ups and downs of the economy, but also
things like trade wars like we're in right now. I
guess I could call it trade war tariff war it.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, So let's talk about that. Okay, what percentage of
farm equipment I would assume with a company like John
Deere Tractor that a big percentage of American farmers get
their farm equipment from American companies off how far off
am I on that observation.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
You're right, You're absolutely right. John Deere is the largest
brand for sure in farm equipment as a single chunk.
Of course, there's other providers like C and H and
Cabota and whatnot. But the point is basically, all these companies,
even American based ones, have such globalized supply chains that
these turffs are probably going to hit a lot of
(23:06):
these traditional manufacturers significantly hard now Helio for example.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
So therefore the mean it's wrong for a second, So
what you're saying is, even though they're buying the tractor,
let's say in Evanston, Illinois, Uh, that tractor has to
be purchased by John Deere or put together by John Deere.
Even if it's manufacturing in the US, it has to
import steel to to create the product.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
So that's going to hug Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
The price of practice is going to go up the exactly.
The other flip side of the equation is if the
and obviously fertilizers and all of that, potentially if they're
coming in from across the border, they're going to be
more expensive. So then the farming in August or September
(23:56):
or October harvests and puts the goods in the market.
I know that America, American farmers feed the world. Is
I understand it? How much more difficult? I mean, people
are still going to need food in other countries around
the world. Obviously, everything they sell with in America, tariffs
(24:16):
don't apply. But if they're exporting around the world, the
potential if they're exporting to Canada or Mexico, for example,
our two neighbors, there's going to be some increased costs there.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah, that's a fair point. It's kind of hard to
track because every day you wake up it seems like
there's a new piece of news in this tariff war.
But I have seen that China and Canada, for example,
are putting retaliatory tariffs on our crop exports, and like
you said, American piece of the world, it's going to
be a significant blow because what it's going to do,
(24:51):
what I think is going to do. The common logic
is that it's going to lower demand for our product overseas,
which means we're going to sell more of it domestically.
Not a problem self, except what that causes is an
oversupplied domestically, right, and then the price of the commodity drops,
So you're gonna see the price of beans and corn
and stuff dropped just because we're oversupplied here. If these
(25:12):
other countries are gonna be buying it now, they still
might buy it despite the care because, as you pointed out,
people still need to eat. But it just depends. I
think there's going to be lower demand though directionally.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So this I think you have sketched out the problem
that the farmers are going to face. And the farmers
I assume have planned, if not planted their crops already
in many parts of the country.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Absolutely correct. Yes, they're already starting in generally in the Midwest.
Actually they might be still not in the ground in
a lot of states that they're but in the South
they've definitely started. I'm down here in Texas, I know
we've already started planting down.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Here, right. But even let's say states like you know,
Kancers to Nebraska, where maybe they haven't planted, they had
to purchase in advance. Oh for sure, yeah, those those products.
So so so let's take worst case scenario, and let's
say that this trade war continues and that the politicians
(26:15):
on both sides of the border don't come to their
senses and say, wait a second, Hold, let's let's chick,
let's cool this down. Is that going to put some
farms out of business as a consequence? I mean that
that's that's what I am most concerned about.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Well, the US farm infrastructure is heavily subsidized, and so
I think generally speaking, the answer would be no. There
would be programs to offer these farmers, you know, crop
insurance or something of that nature. Not not not that directly,
(26:54):
but some sort of safety safety net right for things
like this, subsid these grants, loans, etc. So I think
the idea is not for them to have a hard
landing like that. But you never know, and it's hard
to say that there wouldn't be at least, you know,
a handful of farms that might go under, But how
many more than normal in a given year. I couldn't
(27:16):
speak to that.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
So then my question is how critical does your company
and the products and the services that you provide at Helio.
I assume that makes your company a little bit more
important to farmers in some times that one can describe
as being pretty critical.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Yeah, that's without just shamelessly plugging Helio too much. If
we just speak generally about the concept of precision agriculture.
That's the name of the game. That's the playbook that
farmers need to roll out. Now, it's pretty straightforward. If
your margins are tighter, if inputs are more expensive, you
need to stretch a buck further. And how do you
do that. That's by using acronomic insights, so satellite imagery
(28:02):
or drone imagery to identify problem areas and then using
precision tools like helios, spray drones or another companies or
like a John Deere seems very tractor for example, to
significantly reduce your input cost by only targeting the specific
problem areas. So that's something our technology and precision ad
technology in general can help the farmer with and help
(28:23):
them whether the storm and transition to whatever whatever comes
after this, which I think is going to be hopefully
a much smarter strategic approach to farming in general. I
think this or deal, if you want to call it,
that is going to force that innovation.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah. Well, they say that necessity is the mother of invention,
so I think.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
That's absolutely right, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
What you just said. I really enjoyed the conversation. I'm
not a farmer, never spent much time on farms, but
I admire the men and women who farm in this
country and put the food in our family's tables. They
get up really early in the morning, they work hard
during the some of the toughest months of the year,
and none of them are turning out as individual families
(29:08):
to be millionaires. We all should be greatly indebted to them,
as well as the work they do that feeds up
people in other parts of the world where farming is
not as efficient as it is in America. So, Arthur Ericson,
I appreciate you're giving us an insight into the plate
that American farmers and the uncertainty American farmers are dealing
with at this particular month, and hopefully that could get
squirt away real soon. I appreciate your time. You're a
(29:30):
great guest.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Thank you, Yes, sir, likewise, appreciate your time. Have a
great evening, Locoal okay you too.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
We go back our final guest this hour tonight. In
this edition of the Nice Side News Update, we're going
to look at a study which shows that children, young children,
I mean as young as seven are developing body image
issues and what is the best way for parents to
help these children have a healthy relationship with food and
(29:56):
with who they are. We're going to talk with Kelly Shoop,
she's a licensed to PAM occupational therapist. Be back on Nightside.
This is an important topics. Stay with us. We'll get
to some topics later on tonight. This evening where you
can participate as a caller. We're going to start off
talking about boycotts. I think we've got an interesting hour
at nine o'clock and we will be able to get
(30:18):
a bunch of perspectives. We'll be right back on night
Side now.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Bent to Dan Way live from the Window World to
Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I'd like to welcome Kelly shoe She's a licensed pediatric
occupational therapist. Kelly Shoope, Welcome to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 6 (30:37):
Thank you? I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
We are going to talk about kids developing body image issues.
I'm stunned kids the age of seven. We always thought
this was something that you know, teenage girls were dealing
with when they were thirteen or fourteen. What's going on
that now we have kids at the age of seven
(31:00):
second grade deal with body image issues.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
This, yes, it's it's well, it's really frightening. I think
it's a combination of a couple things. I think it's
that that younger kids have access to the Internet, they
have access to some even TikTok, or they are spending
I mean, as a society, we are spending more time
(31:26):
on screens, and so that also means more TV billboards, movies, ads,
and those all show an idealized body, right, the ideal body,
what would that look like? And the programming in the
country is that this is what the ideal body looks like.
(31:47):
So younger kids are understanding, oh, mind, doesn't look like that.
And we also have, you know, a nation that's over
overweight and obese, and so kids are figuring out why
my body doesn't look anything like what's on this commercial.
And friends, classmates, people, they're cyberbullying over iPads with young
(32:13):
young kids. In fact, I was with a school last
week talking to a group of teachers and they're third graders.
The third grade girls are so mean to each other.
You're fat, you're skinny, your legs are fat. And the
teachers were like, they hadn't telling me, they hadn't seen
anything like it before.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Okay, So my question is if this is a national trend,
which apparently it is. We can blame the Internet, we
can blame TikTok, we can blame all of these sites.
The question is what is there within our lives as
a country or as a nation which may offset that.
(32:58):
It seems to me that in a prior time, when
I was growing up and I'm a baby boomer, we
didn't have the Internet or anything like that. You still
had people, you know, in advertisements in magazines and in
newspapers who looked, you know, otherworldly, and they but they
(33:21):
were things that offset So, for example, and I don't
want to sound old fashioned here, but one of the
things that we have given up on in America is religion.
And I just have to wonder, and I don't want
to sound like because I'm not a religious freak here, okay,
but is the absence of some form of organized religion,
(33:43):
or the diminution of organized religion, and in some cases
rightfully so, we're the epicenter of the pedophile priest pandemic.
Is that something that should be there to help us
think more broadly about helping other people and they were
all different, we're all God's children, or or is that
just so past eight it's it's time has has gone.
Speaker 6 (34:06):
No, it should absolutely be a part of it, you know.
And in the in the piece of religion and spirituality,
they're fasting, and so that's another thing that has kind
of gone by the wayside.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
Right.
Speaker 6 (34:18):
Everybody's like, I want what I want when I want it,
and door Dash can bring it or Uber eats or
I can have my music on Spotify. I only watch
what I want on net. Yes, and so we need more, Yeah,
we need more movement, more exercise, like take a walk
down to the you know, the corner of the street
instead of riding an electric scooter or the bikes. Now
(34:42):
that our battery operated, just I cringe. I'm like, the
bike is supposed to be for exercise, for getting your
heart rate, at building your muscles, your strength, and when
they put a battery on it, it does all the
work for you. So there's no point. So we're so
far off the mark in many ways that it's it's frightening,
and it's really you know, I just feel sad for
(35:04):
these kids who are bullied, Sad for these kids who
at such young ages steel like they are flawed and
imperfect and have these body problems when it should not
be that way.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And of course one of the things that this has
led to, and it doesn't necessarily mean but there are
more kids who are who are committing suicide. There's yes,
it seems to me that there are more kids who
are disappearing and some you have know. I mean, now,
maybe the argument is, well, we cover it more because
in the old days it happened, but we didn't know
(35:38):
about it. And the media now is so pervasive. Uh
there's you know, there's television everywhere, there's cameras everywhere, there's uh,
you know, TMZ. Just we are we just kind of
hit it in a bad direction, I think.
Speaker 6 (35:55):
And for sure, yes, and and those numbers, yes, depression
and anxiety suicide again, those are happening younger and younger,
and in astronomical numbers. And it's part of it's the comparison.
But part of it is, you know, it's the ultra
(36:16):
processed food that isn't giving our bodies nutrients. It's the
lack of sleep, it's the frenzied pace that parents have.
These kids. They just go NonStop school all day, soccer, piano, basketball,
birthday parties all weekend. And the parents will say to me,
I'm so tired from the weekend, and I'm like, yes,
and you've got a fully formed brain and body. Imagine
(36:40):
how your four year old feels. They're just white.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
So what So okay, it sounds to me like you
have painted a portrait of a picture that is so complex.
We are beyond recovery. It sounds what can we do
to recover? I mean, we could preach, you know, slow
it down here and spell the There has to be
some way in which we can convince people to change
(37:06):
change habits and have and change attitudes. What can be done?
I have a talk here that I'm on five five
nights a week, four hours a night. If there's something
that I could do, please help me, help me strut Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:19):
So I think actually the good news is is we
can take actionable steps that will immediately have an impact.
And so for all parents who are hearing this, you
can make changes tomorrow. You can you know, get rid
of the ultra processed food. You can model, you know,
(37:39):
talking well about your own body. And so I'm encouraging parents.
Don't you know, don't don't comment that you are fat
or you feel terrible. In these genes we talk about
no food is bad or good it's all neutral. Food
is fuel for our body. And we talk about being
(38:00):
fit and being healthy, so not skinny, not fat, not
you know, pudgy, all of these words that, Kelly.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
How if we do this, Kelly, we're running out of
time here as I head to us at nine o'clock hour.
Let me have my producer get in touch with you.
Come on back and let's do an hour some night
on the air.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (38:23):
I would love that.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, and you talk to them and let them explain
what's going on. Okay. It's not easy. It's not easy.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
It's not easy.
Speaker 6 (38:32):
You can do it with hell.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Okay, if folks want to get in touch with you
in the meantime, is there somewhere you can direct us.
Speaker 6 (38:42):
Yeah, you can find me at my website www dot
Kelly k Shoop s h o u p dot com
or at Kelly k shoot for Instagram. I'm on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Okay, Will we will want to an hour in the
next couple of weeks, depending up on your schedule, and
I'll get a lot of folks listening to what you
have to say because you make a lot of sense
to me, and there are a lot of folks in
the profession that that that, don't you. You you you
have connected with me and we'll connect again. Thank you
(39:16):
so much, Kelly, thank you.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Okay, we'll talk soon back right after the nine o'clock
news on Nightside, and we are going to talk in
the nine o'clock hour about boycotts. I got a real
couple of thoughts and I hope you do as well.
We'll be back on night Side.
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