In this week's program, host Phil Tower welcomes Randy Thelen, President and CEO of The Right Place Inc. Randy recently presented his annual report in early December at the 2024 Economic Outlook event sponsored by The Right Place. A big part of the presentation was Randy's overview of the organization's important 10-year tech strategy, which has been a focus of Thelen's since taking over as president and CEO of The Right Place roughly two years ago. Randy also spoke with us about several potential economic growth opportunities for West Michigan, including growth in the defense sector, the electric grid, electric vehicles, and data centers. The Right Place recently hit a milestone, playing a pivotal role in creating 50,000 jobs in the region since its founding.
Online: The Right Place Inc.
Online: The Right Place Inc.
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Episode Transcript
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iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend a public affairsprogram. This is West Michigan Weekend from
iHeartRadio. Thank you so much fortuning in. Appreciate you joining us.
As always, I'm your host,Phil Tower, and we appreciate you listening
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(00:27):
as a podcast after you hear iton the radio at Woodradio dot com.
Check the left hand side of thewebsite under podcast and look for West Michigan.
We can a few people are listeningbecause this program has been downloaded like
twelve thousand times. So no pressureon my guest in the studio with me
this time. And it's been along time. We're long overdue for a
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follow up conversation. Randy Thalen ispresident and CEO of The Right Place here
in Grand Rapids. It's been abusy week for him, and first of
all, thank you for being here. Well, thank you Phil, thanks
for having me. You know,we talked. I think it was about
nine months ago, and I'm justtrying to figure out are you going on
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Will twenty twenty four be your thirdyear here. Yeah, wrapping up third
year. I moved here, movedback to Michigan, back to Grand Rapids
in March of twenty twenty one.How has it been so fun? Love
it? Love it. It's noMargarets, none, none, whatsoever.
It's been great to get back intoa place that really is home and to
be able to do this kind ofwork where we're helping to drive I cannotmic
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growth and a place where it justmeans more, Phil, It just means
absolutely more to wake up every daytrying to help continue to lift up this
region and help make us better everyday. It's doing that in your hometown,
so to speak. Not quite myhometown, but it definitely is our
adopted hometown. This has been aspecial return. And I know when we
talked last time, you said techhas been and not only for the right
place, but for you. Techhas been a real key focus. Been
(02:00):
pushing your staff since you took overthe job as president and CEO. We're
not known as a mini Silicon Valleyor whatever you call those places these days
tech strong hubs, but we're certainlygrowing and changing. We have this amazing
medical mile. I just want youto look in the rearview mirror and kind
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of look back on tech and howwe've grown, what we focused on.
What would you like to share withour listeners. Well, it's definitely an
area of focus for us at theright place in the region at large,
as we try to find ways toretain an even higher percentage of our young
people that are looking for their firstcareer and to grow their careers. So
many of them want to be ina tech field and showing them the opportunities
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that exist right here in Grand Rapidsand continue to grow them throughout the region.
We want to make sure everybody understandsthat there's great tech opportunities here today.
You know, this past year,it's been an exciting one in the
world of tech. I think assome of the great comp copanies that are
starting to put down roots here thatare you know, maybe not the name
brands like a Google or a Facebookor an Apple, but certainly have the
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high potential to be great brands forus going forward. Company like Payload,
company like camp Spot, Companies likeIris or Ticker. You know, you
think of camp Spot, which ismaybe somebody a name even though their name
is now up on a building downtownhere in Grand Rapids. They are they
are the camp sites, camp sitereservations what Expedia is to hotel reservations.
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And they're headquartered here. They're flourishinghere, and you know, companies like
that are starting to dot the landscapeand provide a lot of opportunity. Plus
you have our existing companies that areall trying to become more tech oriented.
I think the market is sort ofdemanding that of every business and finding the
talent to fill that is a bigpart of our push, big part of
our mission. How are we doingas far as infrastructure? You know,
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everybody talks about fiber optics and beingable to handle the demand. You know,
it's it's almost another challenge like commercialreal estate and documency and space and
people. Can we build that factoryhere? And you know we're growing really
fast, Randy, But I don'tthink I've ever asked nor have spoken with
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anybody about it in terms of theinfrastructure here in a city like Grand Rapids,
it's been around for hundreds of years. Are we where we need to
be or are we still playing ketchup? No? Great question, Phil,
And if you think back to howbusinesses and communities kind of were built up
over the you know, frankly,over the centuries. We started around rivers.
I mean, every great city isbuilt around a river, and you
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think about our river here in GreaterGrand Rapids. It was populated with factories
who use the river for transportation oflogs to make the furniture. They had
a you know, generated electricity offof the river as well, and so
that was sort of the focal point. And then over time it became railroads,
then it became highways, and nowit's become you know, broadband,
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and by and large we actually doquite well. I think we struggle in
a couple areas, and particularly remoteareas, that last mile of broadband is
a little bit difficult to serve,and I think we have some price challenges
in some of our urban areas.But from an access and an availability,
we generally do quite well. Youare just off the heels of an important
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conversation, actually your annual regional reportto the movers and shakers of the business
community and a lot more here inWest Michigan. We're running this conversation in
the radio on December seventeenth. OnDecember seventh, you gave your I guess
it's your annual State of the Economyreport, and talked about a lot of
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things. One of the things youtalked about, which I think is so
easy to take for granted just lookingaround, just kind of talking to people,
is in the fact that we're kindof through the pandemic in terms of
the impact on the economy, andyou actually said, we're no longer suffering
through a pandemic economy. You know, that's an interesting thing. We're kind
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of okay, it's behind us.Yeah, it's not even it's not that
we've just recovered. I would saywe're fully recovered and on our way.
You know, last year, atthis time, we had kind of come
back to balance with where we wereprior to the pandemic again from an economic
standpoint, and so this year,as we continue to march forward as an
economy, we've really blown past thatpre pandemic situation and have in fact,
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in many ways grown to a levelthat we would have expected to get to
had there not been that recession,that pandemic driven in session recession. So
it's pretty remarkable how resilient the GreaterGrand Rapids economy is and how quickly we
came back. But today we havemore people in jobs. We have more
people living here, and we havemore people visiting here. We have more
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people flying out of our airport.We have more people in the labor force,
we have more people in tech thanever before. Virtually every metric is
back again, not just where wewere pre pandemic, but where we should
have been had the growth continued.So it's a real strong testament to the
diverse economy. We enjoy great entrepreneursthat are driving our businesses and the capabilities
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of our community to really continue topush forward and to grow. Not many
places in the Midwest can say thatexactly. That's a great point. It's
regional population growth you cited almost eightpercent, seven point eight percent over the
last ten years, and that isimportant. That includes a higher concentration of
young people compared to the national average. Interesting to note, though, you
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pointed out that a city like Greenville, South Carolina, scored hyacin population growth
there about seven to eleven point twopercent. Grand Rapids, a city population
only grew two point eight percent.I got to think, Randy Thaanland,
there's a housing issue and affordability andenough housing that's playing into that number.
Fair enough, fair enough, housingis sort of a national challenge right now,
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though, I think sometimes we haveto look at, you know,
what are the challenges that are nationwideand how do we aut perform there,
And we also have to acknowledge whatof the local challenges that we need to
resolve for ourselves. So, youknow, there's a there's a bit of
an anti growth sentiment out there that'sbubbled up. I think we have had
a good growth of late, andso change people you know, resist change
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in some cases, or you know, unclear about what that might mean for
them, and so there's a littlebit of a pushback on some growth.
We have to be mindful, youknow, if we're not growing, we're
generally we're not just plateauing, we'resliding backwards. And it might feel good
sometimes to slow the growth down atouch, but in the end we can't
be certain we can turn it backon when we need it. And that
growth fuels a lot of things thatwe come to enjoy. It supports our
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schools, it supports our hospitals,it supports our parks, It supports our
police and fire services. It supportsso many things that maybe we sometimes take
for granted, or we don't alwaysconnect the dots and so you know,
I guess I would you know,offer to your listeners if you want to
think about what does a you know, strong growth community look like compared to
a declining community look like. Ithink we want to we want to stay
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in the lane that we're in rightnow and continue that growth trajectory. Okay,
I guess to seize upon this,and I'm sorry, that's just the
way I am. That's all right. I literally thought about this before you
and I were going to talk today. I was thinking, I wonder
if anybody doesn't want Grand Rapids togrow, And you just answered my question.
And we don't have to name namesor or companies. Of course we're
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not going to do that on alive radio conversation, but without putting names
and companies in there. These arebusiness people, I'm assuming people who have
lived here a long time. Whatare their fears? Well, I think
fundamentally it's changed by and large buyand large pill We're a region that wants
to grow. You look at someof the things that we're doing. You
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think about the amphitheater that's coming downtown, or the soccer stadium that's proposed,
or the investments we're making at theairport, the investments that our universities are
making. I mean, we areclearly making some big, bold moves to
push forward and to grow. Ithink it's more on the on the edges
or on the margins where people startto wonder, is this the right growth?
Is the type of growth we wantin our particular community. I guess
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the thing we have to always remindourselves though, is what about our kids?
What about our grandkids? What kindof environment do we want them to
live? And we want them tobe able to own a home in Greater
Grand Rapids. And if you know, if we're not building new housing to
grow that supply, you know theold economics loss of supply and demand.
If we're not growing supply and demandcontinues to grow, that means prices are
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going to escalate. And yeah,pretty soon, my kids, your kids,
grandkids can't afford a home in thistown, and they might not stay.
They might they might look for greenerpastors somewhere else where they can enjoy
the American dream. So we haveto just keep the kids in mind,
keep the grandkids in mind, tomake sure we're building for them. I
don't disagree at all, It's aconversation I've had with both of my sons,
and it's something that they are talkingabout, even in their early to
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mid twenties, saying, Hey,I want to be able to afford to
buy a home, and right nowthat's not realistic. So I hope this
is going to get figured out.You know, it's interesting we're speaking with
Andy Thalen, president and CEO theRight Place. By the way, you
can learn more find out all kindsof great things that have happened with the
Right Place at Rightplace dot org,Rightplace dot org. You know it.
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I think the other thing to answermy question, why would somebody not want
to see this great region, thisgreat community grow. I think people have
driven through Atlanta and Chicago during rushhour and they think gridlock. They think,
boy, we just you know,we don't want to turn this great
West Michigan community into that. Well, I just have news for you.
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There are times when there is canbe a lot of traffic gridlock. I
think we are probably facing that quickerthan we realize with our infrastructure, our
roads, and we're not talking abouttech infrastructure. We're talking about our roads.
Talking about looking at better mass transitsolutions and really trying to figure out
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how to move people around in aregion that's grown eight percent over ten years
is going to continue to grow ifthings happen the way we want them to
happen. But you know, Ican see that, I can see people
worried about the affordability of housing ishousing. But in the end, you
really really summarized it very well,Randy. A city that's not growing,
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a region that's not growing, isa region that's dying or a region that
will be dying soon, and peoplewill be it will be a palpable sense
that hey, we're not moving forwardlike we should. And there's the exact
opposite opposite of that with everybody Ispeak with. I got to tell you
we're going to talk about Tech Weekhere in just a moment. I have
never been at anything that gave meliteral goosebumps more than that event, which
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was amazing, and I don't wantto give away we're going to talk about
that in a moment because I can'twait for Tech Week twenty twenty four you
get to top that. So nopressure, Randy feeling at all. But
you know, I just back toyour State of the Region report. There
are a lot of good things.But you pointed out, and I think
this is a really interesting thing.I was going to ask you in the
(13:03):
dumb radio guye way, what arewe missing? But you actually pointed out
we have areas of growth. Weneed more defense contractors and manufacturers here,
we need more electric grid, electricvehicles, data centers. Let's run through
those really quick. What in termsof defense. You know, we think
of the big defense contractors and someof them, you know, do have
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I don't want to say big,but some of the smaller ones do have
and had had a presence here.But what's missing in that aspect? And
we'll go through each of these defenseelectric grid, evs and data centers.
Yeah. So part of our effortthe other day when we when we unveiled
sort of the or had our EconomicOutlook event, was to try to shine
a light on some future economic opportunitiesthat are out there across the country and
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in some cases around the world.And there's there's plenty. I mean,
there's also health sciences, there's foodand food processing, and there's there's plenty
of others. But the ones wehoned in on the other day defence,
data centers, electric vehicles, andelectric grid infrastructure. Those are markets that
are poised for substantial investment and insome cases already underway, you know,
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candidly. Right now, the worldis you know, suffering through a couple
of major conflicts and wars between Ukraineand Gaza, and some tensions in China,
and so a lot of conversations aboutthe need to rebuild the military,
and with that comes defense contracting opportunities. We have suppliers already in this area
that do dabble in that work.And when you see an article like in
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the Wall Street Journal the other daythat question whether or not the US still
has the manufacturing prowess to provide thatdefense you know, supplies. You look
at a region like ours where we'rea manufacturing center of excellence, and our
companies could provide some of that supportand serve you know, the Lockheed Martin
type companies that are big defense contractors. So that's an opportunity going forward.
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There are some estimates that suggest thatspend for defense is going to go up
substantially somewhere in the neighborhood of fiftypercent or just shy of fifty percent,
and you know, within that issome business opportunities on the data center side.
You know, we've seen this thissector grow pretty remarkably over the last
fifteen twenty years. It started offas a place to store sort of business
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data and some government data. Thenit grew exponentially when YouTube came on the
scene and Netflix came on the scene, and we all use data centers indirectly,
whether we realize it or not.Today the next wave of data center
growth is going to be around artificialintelligence and storing the compute capacity and the
data storage capacity needed for AI.And that's going to be a massive hundreds
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and hundreds of billions of dollar investmentto build those data centers. And we
have companies here that we think shouldbe able to supply them. We have
companies already that are supplying and wewant to build that into the market.
And the last couple, certainly,the headlines are clear. Automotive transformation is
underway. Whether it happens as quicklyas some of the forecasts or takes a
bit longer. There's hundreds of billionsof dollars being invested in that space,
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and there's opportunities for West Michigan companiesto participate. We have companies feel that
make they call it the front trunkor the fronk, if you will.
We're producing that here, we're producingcooling systems for battery packs, we're producing
wire harness systems to control those batteriesand everything in between. That's an industry
that's definitely going through a lot ofchange, and with change comes opportunity.
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And then the last big sector wehighlighted was the electric grid. And you
know, we've seen power outages,we've seen challenges over the years get worse
and worse. McKinsey estimates the power, the utilization or the use of power
is going to double by twenty fiftyglobally double and so to meet that demand,
we all want sort of the joysand benefits of electric power to power
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pretty much everything we do these days. That doubling is going to cause a
three hundred billion dollar increase and spendon the electric grid infrastructure, and there's
a lot of components that go intothat. Then we'd love to be able
to make them, design them andholtially manage them out of here. Not
only that, after people read whathappened in Texas with the electric infrastructure and
electric grid and concerns about that,you know a lot of people, especially
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a lot of younger people, arelooking at the importance of having backup power,
solar power, wind power, andobviously the major utilities already investing in
that way ahead of the curve thereand have been for a number of years.
But you know, more solar forhome applications and people realizing it's good
(17:22):
to have that as the technology becomesbetter, as the cost comes down.
But you're absolutely right, there area lot of people who won't buy an
electric car, Randy Thalen because ofthe concern about what's this going to do
to my electric bill? Do youknow, do I want to spend another
four to six thousand dollars to upgrademy home electric and then I've got the
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car? And I think I thinka lot of people really are aware of
that, maybe not able to putit into words, but it's got to
be as easy as walking into aroom and flipping a what light switch and
that kind of reliability in a senseto those in time, that's that's going
to continue to evolve and happen.I mean, think about your cell phone
right now. Your pattern is touse it all day and you charge it
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at night, and now you havea charger, you may have one at
your home where you just sort ofset it on it. You don't even
plug it anymore. You set iton there, and so very soon in
some cases it's already available, butit'll be more readily available where you'll pull
into your into your garage, pullon top of one of those charging pads,
and you won't have to plug inanything. Just when you wake up
in the morning, it's ready togo. I will just tell you right
now, my car is unempty andI have zero percent left in my oil
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change. I got to go getthat happen, and I have zero interest
in doing it. And so partof the appeal to an EV might be
the hassle factor goes down in operatingthat. Yeah, I think I anecdotally
hear from and speak with a lotof people who would love an electric vehicle.
You know, it comes down tocan I get far enough and charge
it? Do we have the supporthere? What would it cost at home?
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And I think we're going to seethat change dramatically in the next five
to ten years, just as thetechnology gets better and we're seeing more and
more advancements in electric vehicles. AndI'm glad you mentioned the electric grid because
that is as you said, thatglobal demand and increase is just staggering.
It's right up there with everything else, including housing, which we've touched on
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Randy Thalen with US president and CEOof the Right Place, Rightplace dot org.
One thing I did want to talkabout I highlighted in my notes here.
I put challenge exclamation point grand rapids, like a lot of cities that
are growing, is experiencing and hasexperienced the declining office occupancy and obviously COVID
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playing into that. There's some otherreasons now that we can all so many
people can work remotely or hybrid worksituations. Talk about that if you will.
And are there some creative solutions ordo we still need to kind of
put our thinking caps on regarding thedeclining office occupancy levels. Yeah, and
this one might just take some degreeof time. I think sometimes the world
(20:03):
and the economy acts a little bitlike a pendulum. And you know,
for years, we had every dayin the office kind of work life,
and although probably not as strict aswe might might recall, I think we
many offices had a little bit ofa flexible system where if you had,
you know, dental appointment, orif you had some you know kid function.
Maybe you work from home that dayprior to the pandemic, But then
the pandemic came along and just acceleratedand work from home became much simpler,
(20:26):
much easier. We all got accustomedto all the virtual tools that are out
there. And so now that pendulumis swung back a little bit. It
went from one hundred percent at hometo now about forty percent at home.
Three days in the office two daysat home has sort of become the new
normal. I suspect over time thatwill continue to work its way back to
what we were prior, which maybea little bit closer to four days.
So we need a little bit oftime for the office market to move through.
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The one thing we have in ouradvantage, though, as the whole
country and the whole world works throughthis office environment, is we're a fifteen
minute city by and large. Youcan get around from one side of the
other fifteen twenty minutes. We're notat Chicago. We're not a San Francisco
where the commute times can be northof an hour, where you're really asking
a lot of somebody to spend twohours a day, you know, an
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hour there, hour back to work, an eight hour shift. That like,
that's just a really big, bigask, whereas here you're talking thirty
minutes. It's not as inconvenience.It also helps you connect with people,
and I think it's a bit ofan advantage for sort of cities of our
size going forward. Randy Thalen withUS President and CEO the right place.
In our last couple of moments herein our conversation West Michigan Weekend from my
(21:33):
Heart Radio, the tech sector,we started talking about that that's a big
focus for the right place. Goodnews is in your regional report tech sector
added thirty four hundred jobs over theWest Michigan region just in the last couple
of years. Thirty thousand plus peopleworked in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics STEM jobs and careers inGrand Rapids. And that's good. We
(21:56):
still have room to grow. Andone of the great things that I was
able to take in was Tech Weekin September of this year. You brought
Malcolm Gladwell in over at twenty MinroeLive and it was electric, It was
wonderful and the room was packed.Randy. I mean, that had to
(22:18):
be really satisfying to see that,and I think they were all there to
see me, right, Phil,They were there to see me, not
Malcolm Gladwell. Well, that's whatI told myself. Was great. Your
introduction was great. No, andI all the speakers were great. He
was superb. And I could tell, you know, being in the media,
you can always tell when a speakeris connecting with an audience. And
(22:38):
you could tell that instantly. Therewas there was no you know, din
of conversation in the room. Peoplewere listening very intently, very acutely.
Well, and I give Malcolm Gladwella lot of credit and a lot of
thanks, because a lot of timesyou hire a speaker like that and they
give, you know, our townthe same speech they give and every other
town. And he certainly did alot of work and did a lot of
homework and knew our market well andgave us some great advice and really emphasize,
(23:03):
frankly, our tech strategy at theright place and how we continue to
take it to another level and buildout that tech hub as he described it,
so really exciting. And yeah,we had about just over a thousand
people that there that night to kickoff tech Week, and over the course
of the week, Phil, wehad thirteen thousand plus people participate, middle
schoolers to senior citizens and everything inbetween, and celebrating really all things tech,
(23:23):
and it was it was a heckof a lot of fun. I
can't let you go, and we'vegot a couple of other things to talk
about. But I don't want thisbecause Andrea would shoot me if I didn't
mention this great prep and points.But fifty thousand jobs, you just hit
a milestone. Fifty thousand jobs atthe right place here in West Michigan has
had a role in I mean,that's really significant, and we still need
(23:49):
more job creation as well too,But just kind of look in the review
mirror and talk about that for amoment. You know, Yeah, in
the early eighties, you know,the economy that we enjoy today, the
early eighties, the economy of Greatergrund Rap has looked nothing like what we
enjoyed today. Was it was nowherenear the level of diversification, nowhere near
the level of dynamism. A lotof our great entrepreneurs today we're just getting
(24:10):
their start and not real clear howthey were going to go. So back
then, Jay van Andel and ahandful of other leaders came together and said
we got to do something about this. We can't wait for somebody to fall
from the sky and solve our problemswith classic West Michigan way. We're going
to figure it out ourselves. Andthey put together an economic development strategy that
ultimately created the right place and createdthe roadmap that we've been following for over
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thirty years now, just every daytrying to make our region better, every
day, working with our existing companies, trying to help them grow, and
when opportunities arise to attract companies here, we do that of course too.
And over that period of time,from about nineteen eighty five till today,
just so just over thirty five years, fifty thousand jobs that we've been able
to help area companies and new companiesto the area create here in West Michigan.
(24:52):
And you know, fifty thousand isa great number, but to me,
the power of that number is reallyin the number of the the people
in the families that it represents.That is, in round numbers, Phill,
fifty thousand is about one in everyten, one in every twelve jobs
across the region. One and inevery twelve families across the region then have
a job that's tied back to thework that we do here, and that's
(25:14):
that's pretty incredible. A big partof all of this is the whole supply
chain and down the road. Wantto real quickly mention this because registration opens
very soon in January the Midwest SupplyChain Management Conference. You've got a big
role in that. That will behappening in March at the JW. Marriott,
So make sure you've got that onyour calendar real quickly. I've got
(25:37):
a minute or so left. Iwas wondering as I was preparing for a
conversation today, somebody's listening to us. You know, we have a pretty
diverse radio audience. Maybe somebody who'sheading up a company who needs some help
expanding. What's the best way forsomeone to interface with the right place?
Yeah, I mean first, Imean start at our website right place dot
org. Call us anytime, happyto help. We're ultimately looking for companies
(26:00):
that are facing a problem that's impedingtheir growth, and our job is sort
of an on budsman to try tofind a way to solve that problem and
knock it down so they can continuetheir growth path, or if they're pursuing
an opportunity, if they're pursuing anew market, or they're picked up a
new customer, they got a chancefor a step increase in growth. We
want to be able to sort ofput our thumb on the scale and help
that happen here in West Michigan.So we assist companies that effect essentially buyers,
(26:25):
or we assist companies that sell theirgood or service outside of the region
and bring new money back into theregion. So manufacturing companies, tech companies,
a headquarters of major companies, engineeringinnovation type of companies that again have
customers around the country and around theworld and bringing new money in. That's
what ultimately really grows our economy andthat's where we spend our time. Yeah,
I think it's amazing you mentioned campSpot, and just if people knew
(26:49):
all the things that have roots herein West Michigan and some things that may
be very common, some things thatmay not know about. It's I think
it would be mind blowing on alot of different levels. Randy Thalen.
It's I can't wait to hear morefrom you in your number three and I
can't wait to see how you're goingto top Tech Week in twenty twenty three
(27:11):
and twenty twenty four. Is thatgoing to be in September again, it
will be I think it's the thirdweek in September. Okay, put that
on your calendars as well. Thankyou so much. This was a long
overdue conversation. Well, thank youanytime. I learned a lot, and
I know our listeners did as well. Randy Thalen, President and CEO of
the Right Place. You can learnmore again as you just mentioned at Rightplace
(27:32):
dot org. That's our program forthis week. Thank you for tuning in.
I'm your host, Phil tower O. Catch again next week right here
on this iHeartRadio station, iHeartMedia WestMichigan. Weekend, a public affairs program
iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend a public affairsprogram. This is West Michigan Weekend from
iHeartRadio. Thank you so much fortuning in. Appreciate you joining us.
As always, I'm your host,Phil Tower, and we appreciate you listening
on whatever iHeartRadio station you may belistening on. And of course we remind
you every time we have one ofthese program segments that you can hear it
(00:27):
as a podcast after you hear iton the radio at Woodradio dot com.
Check the left hand side of thewebsite under podcast and look for West Michigan.
We can a few people are listeningbecause this program has been downloaded like
twelve thousand times. So no pressureon my guest in the studio with me
this time. And it's been along time. We're long overdue for a
(00:51):
follow up conversation. Randy Thalen ispresident and CEO of The Right Place here
in Grand Rapids. It's been abusy week for him, and first of
all, thank you for being here. Well, thank you Phil, thanks
for having me. You know,we talked. I think it was about
nine months ago, and I'm justtrying to figure out are you going on
(01:12):
Will twenty twenty four be your thirdyear here. Yeah, wrapping up third
year. I moved here, movedback to Michigan, back to Grand Rapids
in March of twenty twenty one.How has it been so fun? Love
it? Love it. It's noMargarets, none, none, whatsoever.
It's been great to get back intoa place that really is home and to
be able to do this kind ofwork where we're helping to drive I cannotmic
(01:36):
growth and a place where it justmeans more, Phil, It just means
absolutely more to wake up every daytrying to help continue to lift up this
region and help make us better everyday. It's doing that in your hometown,
so to speak. Not quite myhometown, but it definitely is our
adopted hometown. This has been aspecial return. And I know when we
talked last time, you said techhas been and not only for the right
place, but for you. Techhas been a real key focus. Been
(02:00):
pushing your staff since you took overthe job as president and CEO. We're
not known as a mini Silicon Valleyor whatever you call those places these days
tech strong hubs, but we're certainlygrowing and changing. We have this amazing
medical mile. I just want youto look in the rearview mirror and kind
(02:22):
of look back on tech and howwe've grown, what we focused on.
What would you like to share withour listeners. Well, it's definitely an
area of focus for us at theright place in the region at large,
as we try to find ways toretain an even higher percentage of our young
people that are looking for their firstcareer and to grow their careers. So
many of them want to be ina tech field and showing them the opportunities
(02:46):
that exist right here in Grand Rapidsand continue to grow them throughout the region.
We want to make sure everybody understandsthat there's great tech opportunities here today.
You know, this past year,it's been an exciting one in the
world of tech. I think assome of the great comp copanies that are
starting to put down roots here thatare you know, maybe not the name
brands like a Google or a Facebookor an Apple, but certainly have the
(03:07):
high potential to be great brands forus going forward. Company like Payload,
company like camp Spot, Companies likeIris or Ticker. You know, you
think of camp Spot, which ismaybe somebody a name even though their name
is now up on a building downtownhere in Grand Rapids. They are they
are the camp sites, camp sitereservations what Expedia is to hotel reservations.
(03:27):
And they're headquartered here. They're flourishinghere, and you know, companies like
that are starting to dot the landscapeand provide a lot of opportunity. Plus
you have our existing companies that areall trying to become more tech oriented.
I think the market is sort ofdemanding that of every business and finding the
talent to fill that is a bigpart of our push, big part of
our mission. How are we doingas far as infrastructure? You know,
(03:47):
everybody talks about fiber optics and beingable to handle the demand. You know,
it's it's almost another challenge like commercialreal estate and documency and space and
people. Can we build that factoryhere? And you know we're growing really
fast, Randy, But I don'tthink I've ever asked nor have spoken with
(04:11):
anybody about it in terms of theinfrastructure here in a city like Grand Rapids,
it's been around for hundreds of years. Are we where we need to
be or are we still playing ketchup? No? Great question, Phil,
And if you think back to howbusinesses and communities kind of were built up
over the you know, frankly,over the centuries. We started around rivers.
I mean, every great city isbuilt around a river, and you
(04:33):
think about our river here in GreaterGrand Rapids. It was populated with factories
who use the river for transportation oflogs to make the furniture. They had
a you know, generated electricity offof the river as well, and so
that was sort of the focal point. And then over time it became railroads,
then it became highways, and nowit's become you know, broadband,
(04:54):
and by and large we actually doquite well. I think we struggle in
a couple areas, and particularly remoteareas, that last mile of broadband is
a little bit difficult to serve,and I think we have some price challenges
in some of our urban areas.But from an access and an availability,
we generally do quite well. Youare just off the heels of an important
(05:15):
conversation, actually your annual regional reportto the movers and shakers of the business
community and a lot more here inWest Michigan. We're running this conversation in
the radio on December seventeenth. OnDecember seventh, you gave your I guess
it's your annual State of the Economyreport, and talked about a lot of
(05:38):
things. One of the things youtalked about, which I think is so
easy to take for granted just lookingaround, just kind of talking to people,
is in the fact that we're kindof through the pandemic in terms of
the impact on the economy, andyou actually said, we're no longer suffering
through a pandemic economy. You know, that's an interesting thing. We're kind
(05:59):
of okay, it's behind us.Yeah, it's not even it's not that
we've just recovered. I would saywe're fully recovered and on our way.
You know, last year, atthis time, we had kind of come
back to balance with where we wereprior to the pandemic again from an economic
standpoint, and so this year,as we continue to march forward as an
economy, we've really blown past thatpre pandemic situation and have in fact,
(06:21):
in many ways grown to a levelthat we would have expected to get to
had there not been that recession,that pandemic driven in session recession. So
it's pretty remarkable how resilient the GreaterGrand Rapids economy is and how quickly we
came back. But today we havemore people in jobs. We have more
people living here, and we havemore people visiting here. We have more
(06:43):
people flying out of our airport.We have more people in the labor force,
we have more people in tech thanever before. Virtually every metric is
back again, not just where wewere pre pandemic, but where we should
have been had the growth continued.So it's a real strong testament to the
diverse economy. We enjoy great entrepreneursthat are driving our businesses and the capabilities
(07:03):
of our community to really continue topush forward and to grow. Not many
places in the Midwest can say thatexactly. That's a great point. It's
regional population growth you cited almost eightpercent, seven point eight percent over the
last ten years, and that isimportant. That includes a higher concentration of
young people compared to the national average. Interesting to note, though, you
(07:28):
pointed out that a city like Greenville, South Carolina, scored hyacin population growth
there about seven to eleven point twopercent. Grand Rapids, a city population
only grew two point eight percent.I got to think, Randy Thaanland,
there's a housing issue and affordability andenough housing that's playing into that number.
Fair enough, fair enough, housingis sort of a national challenge right now,
(07:51):
though, I think sometimes we haveto look at, you know,
what are the challenges that are nationwideand how do we aut perform there,
And we also have to acknowledge whatof the local challenges that we need to
resolve for ourselves. So, youknow, there's a there's a bit of
an anti growth sentiment out there that'sbubbled up. I think we have had
a good growth of late, andso change people you know, resist change
(08:13):
in some cases, or you know, unclear about what that might mean for
them, and so there's a littlebit of a pushback on some growth.
We have to be mindful, youknow, if we're not growing, we're
generally we're not just plateauing, we'resliding backwards. And it might feel good
sometimes to slow the growth down atouch, but in the end we can't
be certain we can turn it backon when we need it. And that
growth fuels a lot of things thatwe come to enjoy. It supports our
(08:35):
schools, it supports our hospitals,it supports our parks, It supports our
police and fire services. It supportsso many things that maybe we sometimes take
for granted, or we don't alwaysconnect the dots and so you know,
I guess I would you know,offer to your listeners if you want to
think about what does a you know, strong growth community look like compared to
a declining community look like. Ithink we want to we want to stay
(08:56):
in the lane that we're in rightnow and continue that growth trajectory. Okay,
I guess to seize upon this,and I'm sorry, that's just the
way I am. That's all right. I literally thought about this before you
and I were going to talk today. I was thinking, I wonder
if anybody doesn't want Grand Rapids togrow, And you just answered my question.
And we don't have to name namesor or companies. Of course we're
(09:16):
not going to do that on alive radio conversation, but without putting names
and companies in there. These arebusiness people, I'm assuming people who have
lived here a long time. Whatare their fears? Well, I think
fundamentally it's changed by and large buyand large pill We're a region that wants
to grow. You look at someof the things that we're doing. You
(09:39):
think about the amphitheater that's coming downtown, or the soccer stadium that's proposed,
or the investments we're making at theairport, the investments that our universities are
making. I mean, we areclearly making some big, bold moves to
push forward and to grow. Ithink it's more on the on the edges
or on the margins where people startto wonder, is this the right growth?
Is the type of growth we wantin our particular community. I guess
(10:03):
the thing we have to always remindourselves though, is what about our kids?
What about our grandkids? What kindof environment do we want them to
live? And we want them tobe able to own a home in Greater
Grand Rapids. And if you know, if we're not building new housing to
grow that supply, you know theold economics loss of supply and demand.
If we're not growing supply and demandcontinues to grow, that means prices are
(10:24):
going to escalate. And yeah,pretty soon, my kids, your kids,
grandkids can't afford a home in thistown, and they might not stay.
They might they might look for greenerpastors somewhere else where they can enjoy
the American dream. So we haveto just keep the kids in mind,
keep the grandkids in mind, tomake sure we're building for them. I
don't disagree at all, It's aconversation I've had with both of my sons,
and it's something that they are talkingabout, even in their early to
(10:48):
mid twenties, saying, Hey,I want to be able to afford to
buy a home, and right nowthat's not realistic. So I hope this
is going to get figured out.You know, it's interesting we're speaking with
Andy Thalen, president and CEO theRight Place. By the way, you
can learn more find out all kindsof great things that have happened with the
Right Place at Rightplace dot org,Rightplace dot org. You know it.
(11:11):
I think the other thing to answermy question, why would somebody not want
to see this great region, thisgreat community grow. I think people have
driven through Atlanta and Chicago during rushhour and they think gridlock. They think,
boy, we just you know,we don't want to turn this great
West Michigan community into that. Well, I just have news for you.
(11:33):
There are times when there is canbe a lot of traffic gridlock. I
think we are probably facing that quickerthan we realize with our infrastructure, our
roads, and we're not talking abouttech infrastructure. We're talking about our roads.
Talking about looking at better mass transitsolutions and really trying to figure out
(11:54):
how to move people around in aregion that's grown eight percent over ten years
is going to continue to grow ifthings happen the way we want them to
happen. But you know, Ican see that, I can see people
worried about the affordability of housing ishousing. But in the end, you
really really summarized it very well,Randy. A city that's not growing,
(12:16):
a region that's not growing, isa region that's dying or a region that
will be dying soon, and peoplewill be it will be a palpable sense
that hey, we're not moving forwardlike we should. And there's the exact
opposite opposite of that with everybody Ispeak with. I got to tell you
we're going to talk about Tech Weekhere in just a moment. I have
never been at anything that gave meliteral goosebumps more than that event, which
(12:41):
was amazing, and I don't wantto give away we're going to talk about
that in a moment because I can'twait for Tech Week twenty twenty four you
get to top that. So nopressure, Randy feeling at all. But
you know, I just back toyour State of the Region report. There
are a lot of good things.But you pointed out, and I think
this is a really interesting thing.I was going to ask you in the
(13:03):
dumb radio guye way, what arewe missing? But you actually pointed out
we have areas of growth. Weneed more defense contractors and manufacturers here,
we need more electric grid, electricvehicles, data centers. Let's run through
those really quick. What in termsof defense. You know, we think
of the big defense contractors and someof them, you know, do have
(13:28):
I don't want to say big,but some of the smaller ones do have
and had had a presence here.But what's missing in that aspect? And
we'll go through each of these defenseelectric grid, evs and data centers.
Yeah. So part of our effortthe other day when we when we unveiled
sort of the or had our EconomicOutlook event, was to try to shine
a light on some future economic opportunitiesthat are out there across the country and
(13:48):
in some cases around the world.And there's there's plenty. I mean,
there's also health sciences, there's foodand food processing, and there's there's plenty
of others. But the ones wehoned in on the other day defence,
data centers, electric vehicles, andelectric grid infrastructure. Those are markets that
are poised for substantial investment and insome cases already underway, you know,
(14:09):
candidly. Right now, the worldis you know, suffering through a couple
of major conflicts and wars between Ukraineand Gaza, and some tensions in China,
and so a lot of conversations aboutthe need to rebuild the military,
and with that comes defense contracting opportunities. We have suppliers already in this area
that do dabble in that work.And when you see an article like in
(14:31):
the Wall Street Journal the other daythat question whether or not the US still
has the manufacturing prowess to provide thatdefense you know, supplies. You look
at a region like ours where we'rea manufacturing center of excellence, and our
companies could provide some of that supportand serve you know, the Lockheed Martin
type companies that are big defense contractors. So that's an opportunity going forward.
(14:52):
There are some estimates that suggest thatspend for defense is going to go up
substantially somewhere in the neighborhood of fiftypercent or just shy of fifty percent,
and you know, within that issome business opportunities on the data center side.
You know, we've seen this thissector grow pretty remarkably over the last
fifteen twenty years. It started offas a place to store sort of business
(15:13):
data and some government data. Thenit grew exponentially when YouTube came on the
scene and Netflix came on the scene, and we all use data centers indirectly,
whether we realize it or not.Today the next wave of data center
growth is going to be around artificialintelligence and storing the compute capacity and the
data storage capacity needed for AI.And that's going to be a massive hundreds
(15:33):
and hundreds of billions of dollar investmentto build those data centers. And we
have companies here that we think shouldbe able to supply them. We have
companies already that are supplying and wewant to build that into the market.
And the last couple, certainly,the headlines are clear. Automotive transformation is
underway. Whether it happens as quicklyas some of the forecasts or takes a
bit longer. There's hundreds of billionsof dollars being invested in that space,
(15:54):
and there's opportunities for West Michigan companiesto participate. We have companies feel that
make they call it the front trunkor the fronk, if you will.
We're producing that here, we're producingcooling systems for battery packs, we're producing
wire harness systems to control those batteriesand everything in between. That's an industry
that's definitely going through a lot ofchange, and with change comes opportunity.
(16:15):
And then the last big sector wehighlighted was the electric grid. And you
know, we've seen power outages,we've seen challenges over the years get worse
and worse. McKinsey estimates the power, the utilization or the use of power
is going to double by twenty fiftyglobally double and so to meet that demand,
we all want sort of the joysand benefits of electric power to power
(16:37):
pretty much everything we do these days. That doubling is going to cause a
three hundred billion dollar increase and spendon the electric grid infrastructure, and there's
a lot of components that go intothat. Then we'd love to be able
to make them, design them andholtially manage them out of here. Not
only that, after people read whathappened in Texas with the electric infrastructure and
electric grid and concerns about that,you know a lot of people, especially
(17:00):
a lot of younger people, arelooking at the importance of having backup power,
solar power, wind power, andobviously the major utilities already investing in
that way ahead of the curve thereand have been for a number of years.
But you know, more solar forhome applications and people realizing it's good
(17:22):
to have that as the technology becomesbetter, as the cost comes down.
But you're absolutely right, there area lot of people who won't buy an
electric car, Randy Thalen because ofthe concern about what's this going to do
to my electric bill? Do youknow, do I want to spend another
four to six thousand dollars to upgrademy home electric and then I've got the
(17:45):
car? And I think I thinka lot of people really are aware of
that, maybe not able to putit into words, but it's got to
be as easy as walking into aroom and flipping a what light switch and
that kind of reliability in a senseto those in time, that's that's going
to continue to evolve and happen.I mean, think about your cell phone
right now. Your pattern is touse it all day and you charge it
(18:07):
at night, and now you havea charger, you may have one at
your home where you just sort ofset it on it. You don't even
plug it anymore. You set iton there, and so very soon in
some cases it's already available, butit'll be more readily available where you'll pull
into your into your garage, pullon top of one of those charging pads,
and you won't have to plug inanything. Just when you wake up
in the morning, it's ready togo. I will just tell you right
now, my car is unempty andI have zero percent left in my oil
(18:32):
change. I got to go getthat happen, and I have zero interest
in doing it. And so partof the appeal to an EV might be
the hassle factor goes down in operatingthat. Yeah, I think I anecdotally
hear from and speak with a lotof people who would love an electric vehicle.
You know, it comes down tocan I get far enough and charge
it? Do we have the supporthere? What would it cost at home?
(18:55):
And I think we're going to seethat change dramatically in the next five
to ten years, just as thetechnology gets better and we're seeing more and
more advancements in electric vehicles. AndI'm glad you mentioned the electric grid because
that is as you said, thatglobal demand and increase is just staggering.
It's right up there with everything else, including housing, which we've touched on
(19:18):
Randy Thalen with US president and CEOof the Right Place, Rightplace dot org.
One thing I did want to talkabout I highlighted in my notes here.
I put challenge exclamation point grand rapids, like a lot of cities that
are growing, is experiencing and hasexperienced the declining office occupancy and obviously COVID
(19:40):
playing into that. There's some otherreasons now that we can all so many
people can work remotely or hybrid worksituations. Talk about that if you will.
And are there some creative solutions ordo we still need to kind of
put our thinking caps on regarding thedeclining office occupancy levels. Yeah, and
this one might just take some degreeof time. I think sometimes the world
(20:03):
and the economy acts a little bitlike a pendulum. And you know,
for years, we had every dayin the office kind of work life,
and although probably not as strict aswe might might recall, I think we
many offices had a little bit ofa flexible system where if you had,
you know, dental appointment, orif you had some you know kid function.
Maybe you work from home that dayprior to the pandemic, But then
the pandemic came along and just acceleratedand work from home became much simpler,
(20:26):
much easier. We all got accustomedto all the virtual tools that are out
there. And so now that pendulumis swung back a little bit. It
went from one hundred percent at hometo now about forty percent at home.
Three days in the office two daysat home has sort of become the new
normal. I suspect over time thatwill continue to work its way back to
what we were prior, which maybea little bit closer to four days.
So we need a little bit oftime for the office market to move through.
(20:49):
The one thing we have in ouradvantage, though, as the whole
country and the whole world works throughthis office environment, is we're a fifteen
minute city by and large. Youcan get around from one side of the
other fifteen twenty minutes. We're notat Chicago. We're not a San Francisco
where the commute times can be northof an hour, where you're really asking
a lot of somebody to spend twohours a day, you know, an
(21:10):
hour there, hour back to work, an eight hour shift. That like,
that's just a really big, bigask, whereas here you're talking thirty
minutes. It's not as inconvenience.It also helps you connect with people,
and I think it's a bit ofan advantage for sort of cities of our
size going forward. Randy Thalen withUS President and CEO the right place.
In our last couple of moments herein our conversation West Michigan Weekend from my
(21:33):
Heart Radio, the tech sector,we started talking about that that's a big
focus for the right place. Goodnews is in your regional report tech sector
added thirty four hundred jobs over theWest Michigan region just in the last couple
of years. Thirty thousand plus peopleworked in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics STEM jobs and careers inGrand Rapids. And that's good. We
(21:56):
still have room to grow. Andone of the great things that I was
able to take in was Tech Weekin September of this year. You brought
Malcolm Gladwell in over at twenty MinroeLive and it was electric, It was
wonderful and the room was packed.Randy. I mean, that had to
(22:18):
be really satisfying to see that,and I think they were all there to
see me, right, Phil,They were there to see me, not
Malcolm Gladwell. Well, that's whatI told myself. Was great. Your
introduction was great. No, andI all the speakers were great. He
was superb. And I could tell, you know, being in the media,
you can always tell when a speakeris connecting with an audience. And
(22:38):
you could tell that instantly. Therewas there was no you know, din
of conversation in the room. Peoplewere listening very intently, very acutely.
Well, and I give Malcolm Gladwella lot of credit and a lot of
thanks, because a lot of timesyou hire a speaker like that and they
give, you know, our townthe same speech they give and every other
town. And he certainly did alot of work and did a lot of
homework and knew our market well andgave us some great advice and really emphasize,
(23:03):
frankly, our tech strategy at theright place and how we continue to
take it to another level and buildout that tech hub as he described it,
so really exciting. And yeah,we had about just over a thousand
people that there that night to kickoff tech Week, and over the course
of the week, Phil, wehad thirteen thousand plus people participate, middle
schoolers to senior citizens and everything inbetween, and celebrating really all things tech,
(23:23):
and it was it was a heckof a lot of fun. I
can't let you go, and we'vegot a couple of other things to talk
about. But I don't want thisbecause Andrea would shoot me if I didn't
mention this great prep and points.But fifty thousand jobs, you just hit
a milestone. Fifty thousand jobs atthe right place here in West Michigan has
had a role in I mean,that's really significant, and we still need
(23:49):
more job creation as well too,But just kind of look in the review
mirror and talk about that for amoment. You know, Yeah, in
the early eighties, you know,the economy that we enjoy today, the
early eighties, the economy of Greatergrund Rap has looked nothing like what we
enjoyed today. Was it was nowherenear the level of diversification, nowhere near
the level of dynamism. A lotof our great entrepreneurs today we're just getting
(24:10):
their start and not real clear howthey were going to go. So back
then, Jay van Andel and ahandful of other leaders came together and said
we got to do something about this. We can't wait for somebody to fall
from the sky and solve our problemswith classic West Michigan way. We're going
to figure it out ourselves. Andthey put together an economic development strategy that
ultimately created the right place and createdthe roadmap that we've been following for over
(24:32):
thirty years now, just every daytrying to make our region better, every
day, working with our existing companies, trying to help them grow, and
when opportunities arise to attract companies here, we do that of course too.
And over that period of time,from about nineteen eighty five till today,
just so just over thirty five years, fifty thousand jobs that we've been able
to help area companies and new companiesto the area create here in West Michigan.
(24:52):
And you know, fifty thousand isa great number, but to me,
the power of that number is reallyin the number of the the people
in the families that it represents.That is, in round numbers, Phill,
fifty thousand is about one in everyten, one in every twelve jobs
across the region. One and inevery twelve families across the region then have
a job that's tied back to thework that we do here, and that's
(25:14):
that's pretty incredible. A big partof all of this is the whole supply
chain and down the road. Wantto real quickly mention this because registration opens
very soon in January the Midwest SupplyChain Management Conference. You've got a big
role in that. That will behappening in March at the JW. Marriott,
So make sure you've got that onyour calendar real quickly. I've got
(25:37):
a minute or so left. Iwas wondering as I was preparing for a
conversation today, somebody's listening to us. You know, we have a pretty
diverse radio audience. Maybe somebody who'sheading up a company who needs some help
expanding. What's the best way forsomeone to interface with the right place?
Yeah, I mean first, Imean start at our website right place dot
org. Call us anytime, happyto help. We're ultimately looking for companies
(26:00):
that are facing a problem that's impedingtheir growth, and our job is sort
of an on budsman to try tofind a way to solve that problem and
knock it down so they can continuetheir growth path, or if they're pursuing
an opportunity, if they're pursuing anew market, or they're picked up a
new customer, they got a chancefor a step increase in growth. We
want to be able to sort ofput our thumb on the scale and help
that happen here in West Michigan.So we assist companies that effect essentially buyers,
(26:25):
or we assist companies that sell theirgood or service outside of the region
and bring new money back into theregion. So manufacturing companies, tech companies,
a headquarters of major companies, engineeringinnovation type of companies that again have
customers around the country and around theworld and bringing new money in. That's
what ultimately really grows our economy andthat's where we spend our time. Yeah,
I think it's amazing you mentioned campSpot, and just if people knew
(26:49):
all the things that have roots herein West Michigan and some things that may
be very common, some things thatmay not know about. It's I think
it would be mind blowing on alot of different levels. Randy Thalen.
It's I can't wait to hear morefrom you in your number three and I
can't wait to see how you're goingto top Tech Week in twenty twenty three
(27:11):
and twenty twenty four. Is thatgoing to be in September again, it
will be I think it's the thirdweek in September. Okay, put that
on your calendars as well. Thankyou so much. This was a long
overdue conversation. Well, thank youanytime. I learned a lot, and
I know our listeners did as well. Randy Thalen, President and CEO of
the Right Place. You can learnmore again as you just mentioned at Rightplace
(27:32):
dot org. That's our program forthis week. Thank you for tuning in.
I'm your host, Phil tower O. Catch again next week right here
on this iHeartRadio station, iHeartMedia WestMichigan. Weekend, a public affairs program
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