Podcasts about midwestern

With Mike Scott INTRO:  Welcome to My Big Fat Bloody Mary podcast where you will never drink alone. We are coming to you from the studios of the Bloody Mary Concert Series.  Intro Guest : Mike Scott! https://www.footstepsoflacrosse.org/ La Crosse Distillery-Field Notes Whose corn-based vodka is just that, 100% Midwestern …

The only whole-animal butchery in the city, dedicated to local, Midwestern free-range farms

Asian carp has a new name — copi. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into a rebranding effort and landed on the name “copi,” to reflect the copious amount of the fish that live in Midwestern rivers and streams. Harvest Public Media reporter Dana Cronin joins us to talk about this fish story.

Patients with more advanced disease are returning to hospitals in pre-pandemic volumes and the cost of treating them is now higher. On MedAxiom HeartTalk, host Melanie Lawson speaks with Stuart Jacobson, Founder & CEO of Biome Analytics, Amber Pawlikowski, MSN, RN, CPHQ, Director of Client Services & Quality Improvement Analytics at Biome Analytics, and Bradley Hubbard, MD, Cardiologist at Trinity Health Michigan Heart to discuss the struggles of quality performance improvement during a time of massive resource shortages and some of the major barriers that clinicians face. We're also joined by Joel Sauer, MBA, Executive Vice President, Consulting and Denise Busman, MSN, Vice President, Care Transformation at MedAxiom who share insights on how organizations can use analytics to better achieve the “Quadruple Aim” of healthcare. Guest Bios Bradley Hubbard, MD, Cardiologist, Trinity Health Michigan Heart - Dr. Hubbard has more than 20 years of experience practicing in the area. His clinical interests include cardiac MRI, critical care, and monitoring quality outcomes. Dr. Hubbard also has additional training in adult comprehensive echocardiography and nuclear cardiology. He is the director of the coronary care unit and section head of cardiology at St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor, as well as a clinical instructor in internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School. Amber Pawlikowski, MSN, RN, CPHQ, Director of Client Services & Quality Improvement Analytics, Biome Analytics - Amber is a passionate and driven healthcare leader with over a decade of experience in healthcare delivery and services. She is considered a young, rising figure and prominent voice in the areas of data analytics and quality improvement methodologies. As a healthcare leader, Amber has created, directed, implemented, and continuously monitored quality strategic plans and outcomes for the nation's largest CVSLs with specific focus on cardiothoracic surgery, vascular surgery, cardiology (medical, interventional and electrophysiology) and interventional radiology. Amber currently serves as Director of Client Services and Quality Improvement Analytics at Biome, a leading provider of performance solutions for enterprise cardiovascular centers  Stuart Jacobson, Founder & CEO, Biome Analytics – An entrepreneur, Stuart Jacobson co-founded Biome Analytics in 2013.  Denise Busman, MSN, VP, Care Transformation at MedAxiom - Denise brings more than 30 years of experience as a cardiovascular clinician and leader to MedAxiom. Her clinical expertise is complemented by a passion for engaging multi-disciplinary teams to transform care delivery and enhance clinical quality. Known for her work in program development and change management, Denise is skilled in the implementation of new programs and clinical initiatives. Denise joins MedAxiom from Spectrum Health, a multi-hospital system in Michigan, where she held a variety of positions including critical care educator and cardiology clinical nurse specialist. Most recently, her focus was directed toward clinical improvement and quality for the cardiovascular service line, where she implemented innovative approaches to care and served as a trusted advisor to cardiovascular physicians and team members. Denise holds a bachelor's degree in nursing from Michigan State University and master's degree in nursing from Grand Valley State University. She has been active with the American College of Cardiology for many years as a Michigan Chapter board member and cardiovascular team liaison, ACC Scientific Program Committee member, and reviewer of scientific abstracts. Joel Sauer, MBA, EVP - Consulting, MedAxiom - Since 2010 Joel Sauer has been providing consultative services around the country to accelerate the value transition in health care, particularly within the cardiovascular realm. A significant area of concentration has been creating contemporary and effective physician/hospital partnership structures, utilizing employment and other contractual arrangements (such as professional services agreements) and joint ventures. His work includes full-service line advancement, including governance and leadership development, and the creation of targeted co-management programs. Joel is an expert in vision and strategy setting, cultural and operational integration, and physician compensation plan design that promotes the vision and objectives of the organization. Prior to consulting, Joel spent 14 years as Chief Executive Officer of a large Midwestern multi-specialty physician group that included 23 cardiologists. In 2008 Joel led his group through acquisition by a major health system and then took over as CEO of its entire physician enterprise, which eventually included nearly 500 providers. A recognized national resource in cardiovascular physician compensation, Joel is author of the annual MedAxiom Provider Compensation & Production Survey and has expertise in provider workforce planning and development.  Along with the entire MedAxiom Consulting team, he is a resource in new federal payment models such as the Quality Payment Program and the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced (BPCI Advanced), and other episode payment-based arrangements. Joel is often published in health care magazines, blogs and trade journals and is a regular speaker at national health care meetings.  Bonus Links:https://biome.io/

Hey Fivers and High Flyers sorry live got in the way so this is a little shorter than usual but I will be back next week stronger than ever. However these are the promotions I put over 4th Wall 07/08 AWF ICW Milwaukee 07/15 AAW July 15th Chicago Style Wrestling 07/15 POWW 07/16 Warrior Wrestling 07/23 NOW Wrestling 07/23 GLCW all month

 To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on June 28. Free subscribers got it on July 1. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription.WhoJonathan M. Davis, General Manager of Perfect North, IndianaRecorded onJune 20, 2022About Perfect NorthClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Perfect FamilyPass affiliations: NoneLocated in: Lawrenceburg, IndianaClosest neighboring ski areas: Mad River, Ohio (2 hours, 18 minutes); Paoli Peaks, Indiana (2 hours, 39 minutes); Snow Trails (3 hours)Base elevation: 400 feetSummit elevation: 800 feetVertical drop: 400 feetSkiable Acres: 100Average annual snowfall: 24 inchesTrail count: 22 (1 double-black, 3 black, 3 blue-black, 10 intermediate, 5 beginner)Lift count: 12 (2 quads, 3 triples, 5 carpets, 2 ropetows - view Lift Blog’s inventory of Perfect North’s lift fleet)About Timberline, West VirginiaWhile this podcast is not explicitly about Timberline, Jonathan had an important role in the ski area’s acquisition in 2019. His enthusiasm for Timberline is clear, the opportunity and the investment are enormous, and this conversation acts as a primer for what I hope will be a full Timberline podcast at some future point.Click here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Perfect FamilyPass affiliations: NoneLocated in: Davis, West VirginiaClosest neighboring ski areas: Canaan Valley (8 minutes); White Grass XC touring/backcountry center (11 minutes); Wisp, Maryland (1 hour, 15 minutes); Snowshoe, West Virginia (1 hour, 50 minutes); Bryce, Virginia (2 hours); Homestead, Virginia (2 hours); Massanutten, Virginia (2 hours, 21 minutes)Base elevation: 3,268 feetSummit elevation: 4,268 feetVertical drop: 1,000 feetSkiable Acres: 100Average annual snowfall: 150 inchesTrail count: 20 (2 double-black, 3 black, 5 intermediate, 10 beginner)Lift count: 3 (1 high-speed six-pack, 1 fixed-grip quad, 1 carpet - view Lift Blog’s inventory of Timberline’s lift fleet)Why I interviewed himThere are two kinds of ski areas in the Midwest. The first are the big ones, out there somewhere in the woods. Where 10,000 years ago a glacier got ornery. Or, farther back in time, little mountains hove up out of the earth. They’re at least 400 feet tall and top out near 1,000. They’re not near anything and they don’t need to be. People will drive to get there. Often they sit in a snowbelt, with glades and bumps and hidden parts. Multiple peaks. A big lodge at the bottom. There are perhaps two dozen of these in the entire region, all of them in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Boyne, Nub’s Nob, Crystal, Caberfae, Bohemia, Powderhorn, Whitecap, Granite Peak, Spirit, Lutsen. This is not a complete list. I’m making a point here.The second kind of Midwest ski area is usually smaller. It claims 200 vertical feet and actually has 27. It has four chairlifts for every run. It has a parking lot that could swallow Lake George. It’s affordable. And it’s close. To something. Metro Detroit has four ski areas. Milwaukee has eight. Minneapolis has six. But pretty much any Lower Midwestern city of any size has at least one ski area in its orbit: Cleveland (Alpine Valley, Boston Mills, Brandywine), Columbus (Snow Trails, Mad River), St. Louis (Hidden Valley), Kansas City (Snow Creek), Des Moines (Seven Oaks), Chicago (Four Lakes, Villa Olivia), Omaha (Mt. Crescent).For Cincinnati, that ski area is Perfect North. It’s actually one of the larger city-adjacent ski areas in the region: 400 vertical feet on 100 acres (accurate numbers, as far as I can tell). Twelve lifts. Twenty-two trails. Indiana has 6.7 million residents and two ski areas. Some winter days, approximately half of them are skiing at Perfect North.I’m just kidding around about the numbers. What I’m trying to say is that urban Midwestern ski areas are terrific businesses. They’re small but handle unimaginable volume in short, intense seasons of 12-hour-plus days. Davis tells me in the podcast that the ski area hires 1,200 seasonal employees for winter. That is an almost incomprehensible number. Killington, the largest ski area in the east, 20 times the size of Perfect North, has around 1,600 wintertime employees.But that’s what it takes to keep the up-and-down moving. Perfect North was a sort of accidental ski area, born when a college student knocked on farmer Clyde Perfect’s door and said, “hey did you know your land is perfect for a ski area?” In almost snowless Indiana, this was quite a wild notion. Not that no one had tried. The state has nine lost ski areas. But Perfect North is one of only two that survived (the other is Vail-owned Paoli Peaks, which survives no thanks to the mothership). I don’t know enough about the ski areas that failed to say why they’re gone, but it’s obvious why Perfect North has succeeded: relentless investment by committed operators. Here’s an excerpt from a case study by SMI snowmakers:[Perfect North] employs 245 snowmaking machines and an infrastructure that pumps about 120 million gallons of water annually, giving the resort a 3-4 foot snowpack throughout the season. The system is so efficient that operators can start as many as 200 snowmakers in about an hour.At its modest start-up in 1980, Perfect North had only rope tows, T-bars and about a dozen snowmakers covering roughly seven acres. But the family-owned operation has expanded each year and now features five chair lifts and six surface lifts serving more than ten times the skiable terrain, as well as one of the largest tubing operations in the entire U.S. …“We knew early on that snowmaking was critical to a great experience on the hills. The snow is the reason people come; everything else is secondary. So we really focused on it right from the beginning, and we’ve enhanced our snowmaking capability every year,” said [Perfect North President Chip] Perfect.All of the snow guns now in use at Perfect North are manufactured by SMI, and every one is permanently mounted on a SnowTower™ (or pole-top unit). Most are the company’s signature PoleCat™ or Super PoleCat™ designs, with either hill air feed or onboard compressors. Unlike some resorts that boast 100% snowmaking on their trails, Perfect North runs enough machines to be able to make snow on virtually the entire skiing and tubing area at the same time.This is not one model of how to make a ski area work in the Lower Midwest – this is the only way to make a ski area work in the Lower Midwest. The region was a bit late to skiing. Perfect North didn’t open until 1980. Snowmaking had to really advance before such a thing as consistent skiing in Indiana was even conceivable. But being possible is not the same thing as being easy. There are only two ski areas in Indiana for a reason: it’s hard. Perfect North has mastered it anyway. And you’ll understand about two minutes into this conversation why this place is special.What we talked aboutA couple kids watching for the lights to flip on across the valley, announcing the opening of the ski season; Perfect North in the ‘80s; a place where jeans and “layered hunting gear” are common; ski area as machine; from bumping chairs to general manager; the pioneer days of 90s tech; moving into the online future without going bust; RFID; the surprising reason why Perfect North switched from metal wicket tickets to the plastic ziptie version; taking over a ski area in the unique historical moment that was spring 2020; staff PTSD from the Covid season; the power of resolving disputes through one-on-one talks; “we lost something in those two years with how we interact with people”; 1,200 people to run a 400-vertical-foot ski area; how Perfect North fully staffed up and offered an 89-hour-per-week schedule as Vail retreated and severely cut hours at its Indiana and Ohio ski areas; Perfect North would have faced “an absolute mutiny” had they pulled the Vail bait-and-switch of cutting operating hours after pass sales ended; how aggressive you have to be with snowmaking in the Lower Midwest; “the people of the Midwest are fiercely loyal”; reaction to Vail buying Peak Resorts; “I want Midwest skiing to succeed broadly”; Cincinnati as a ski town; skiing’s identity crisis; the amazing story behind Perfect North’s founding; the Perfect family’s commitment to annual reinvestment; remembering ski area founder Clyde Perfect, who passed away in 2020; you best keep those web cams active Son; snowmaking and Indiana; the importance of valleys; the importance of a committed owner; potential expansion; where the ski area could add trails within the existing footprint; terrain park culture in the Lower Midwest; the management and evolution of parks at Perfect North; potential chairlift upgrades and a theoretical priority order; where the ski area could use an additional chairlift; the potential for terrain park ropetows; coming updates to Jam Session’s ropetows; Perfect North’s amazing network of carpet lifts; the ski area’s massive tubing operation; why Perfect North purchased Timberline and how the purchase came together; why creditors rejected the first winner’s bid; West Virginia as a ski state; the reception to Timberline’s comeback; “it didn’t take us long to realize that the three lifts on site were unworkable”; how well Perfect North and Timberline work as a ski area network; “Timberline Mountain has got to stand on its own financially”; whether Perfect North could ever purchase more ski areas; “I hate to see ski areas wither up and die”; Perfect North’s diverse season pass suite; “what drives our guest’s visits is their availability”; and whether Timberline or Perfect North could join the Indy Pass.            Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewYou want to hear something funny? I often put out queries on Twitter or via email, asking people to tell me who they would most like to hear from on the podcast. Or sometimes people just write and say something like, “hey love the pod you should interview…” And the interview they’ve most often requested has been some combination of Timberline and Perfect North. I don’t really understand why. I mean, I think it’s an awesome story. I’ve yet to meet a ski area I wasn’t fascinated by, and this Midwest-buys-Mid-Atlantic storyline is especially compelling to me. But this one has, for whatever reason, resonated broadly. I’ve never once had someone ask me to track down the head of Telluride or Mammoth or Heavenly (I’d gladly talk to the leaders of any of the three), but the Perfect North/Timberline request has been hitting my inbox consistently for years.Well, it’s done. I’d still like to do a Timberline-first pod, but the basic story of the acquisition is there, and we spend about 15 minutes on the West Virginia ski area. Still, I was not just listening to the request line. I tracked down Davis for the same reason that I tracked down Snow Trails, Ohio’s Scott Crislip last month: these are the only two ski areas in Indiana or Ohio that functioned normally last season. And they are the only two ski areas in those states that are not owned by Vail.Paoli Peaks was open 28 hours per week, from Thursday through Sunday, with no night skiing on weekends. Perfect North was open 89 hours per week, with night skiing seven days per week. I found this fairly offensive, and WTIU Public TV in Indiana invited me on-air back in March to talk about it:How, exactly, did Vail get owned by two independent operators with a fraction of the institutional resources? That is the question that these two podcasts attempt to answer. Vail clearly misread the market in Ohio and Indiana. They did not make enough snow or hire enough people. They cut night skiing. In the Midwest. That’s like opening a steakhouse and cutting steak off the menu. Sorry, Guys, budget cuts. You can’t find steak at this steakhouse, but we have beef broth soup and canned greenbeans. And by the way, we’re only open for lunch. Like, how did they not know that? It may be the worst series of ski area operating decisions I’ve ever seen.I should probably just let this go. Now that I’ve said my piece via these two interviews, I probably will. I’ve made my point. But seriously Vail needs to look at what Perfect North and Snow Trails did this past season and do exactly that. And if they can’t, then, as Davis says in this interview, “if they don’t want Paoli and Mad River, we’ll take them.”Questions I wish I’d askedPerfect North has a really interesting pass perk for its highest-tiered pass: Perfect Season Pass holders can go direct to lift. That pass is $356. Gold passholders, who can ski up to eight hours per day, must pick up a lift ticket at the window each time they ski. That pass is $291. While the gold pass is not technically unlimited, eight hours per day seems more than sufficient. I’m ready to wrap it up after seven hours at Alta. I can’t imagine that eight hours wouldn’t be enough Indiana skiing. But I don’t think the ski area would bother with the two different passes if the market hadn’t told them there was a need, and I would have liked to have discussed the rationale behind this pass suite a bit more.What I got wrongI said on the podcast that Snow Trails was open “80-some hours per week.” The number was actually 79 hours. I also stated in the introduction that Perfect North was founded by “the Perfect family and a group of investors,” but it was the Perfect family alone.  Why you should ski Perfect NorthWe’ve been through this before, with Snow Trails, Mountain Creek, Paul Bunyan, Wachusett, and many more. If you live in Cincinnati and you are a skier, you have a choice to make: you can be the kind of skier who skis all the time, or you can be the kind of skier who skis five days per year at Whistler. I know dozens of people in New York like this. They ski at Breckenridge, they ski at Park City, they ski at Jackson Hole. But they don’t – they just couldn’t – ski Mountain Creek or Hunter or even Stowe. East Coast skiing is just so icy, they tell me. Well, sometimes. But it’s skiing. And whether you ski six days per year or 50 largely depends upon your approach to your local.If I lived in Cincinnati, I’d have a pass to Perfect North and I’d go there all the time. I would not be there for eight hours at a time. Ten runs is a perfectly good day of skiing at a small ski area. More if conditions are good or I’m having fun. Anything to get outside and make a few turns. Go, ride the lifts, get out. No need to overthink this. Any skiing is better than none at all.Most of Perfect North’s skiers, of course, are teenagers and families. And it’s perfect for both of these groups. But it doesn’t have to be for them alone. Ski areas are for everyone. Go visit.As far as Timberline goes, well, that’s a whole different thing. A thousand feet of vert and 150 inches of average annual snowfall shouldn’t take a lot of convincing for anyone anywhere within striking distance.Podcast NotesPerfect North founder Clyde Perfect passed away in 2020. Here is his obituary.I mentioned that Indiana had several lost ski areas. Here’s an inventory. My 1980 copy of The White Book of Ski Areas lists nine hills in Indiana. Perfect North isn’t one of them (Paoli Peaks, the state’s other extant ski area, is). Here’s a closer look at two of the more interesting ones (you can view more trailmaps on skimap.org):Nashville AlpsHere’s the 2001 trailmap for Nashville Alps, which had a 240-foot vertical drop. The ski area closed around 2002, and the lifts appear to be gone.If anyone knows why Nashville Alps failed, please let me know.Ski StarlightThe White Book pegs this one with an amazing 554 vertical feet, which would make it taller than any ski area in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. The map shows trails running along little ridgelines separated by valleys, which would have made this a really interesting spot on the rare occasions it snowed enough to ski the trees.Google maps suggests that this trailmap more or less reflects geologic reality. Here’s a YouTube video from a few years back, when the ski area was apparently for sale. The lifts were still intact (though likely unusable):The White Book says that this place had a double-double and two J-bars in 1980. Just 20 minutes from Louisville, this seems like the kind of little Midwestern spot that could boom with the right operators. The cost to bring it online would likely be prohibitive, however. As with most things in U.S. America, it would be the permitting that would likely kill it in the crib.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 70/100 in 2022, and number 316 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

  Are you goal-oriented? Are you sure you're in the right place right now professionally? Develop the entrepreneurial mindset you need that can drive you to reach more success. Tune into this episode as Principal Broker https://www.linkedin.com/in/asksarita/ (Sarita Dua) discusses her unique journey at Keller Williams Realty Professionals. She loves engineering and getting specific answers, but she realizes she wants something more as time goes by. She shares what triggered her to start a career in the real estate industry and the factors that contributed to her decision. --- Sarita Dua, Principal Broker At Keller Williams Realty Professionals Welcome to episode 323. Thank you so much for reading. We get to talk to an agent who has done something I've never heard of for a realtor yet in over 300 interviews. I won't tell you what it is. You have to read to find that out but we're going to be talking to Sarita Dua. She's in the Portland area with https://www.kw.com/ (Keller Williams). She has Ask Sarita, which is her website https://www.asksarita.com/ (AskSarita.com). That's been her branding for years. She created that prior to even getting her license. That gives you a hint about some of the things that Sarita does. Let's get this thing started. Sarita, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Bill. It's great to be here. I can't wait to chat with you. You have a very interesting story. You know that. It's unique for a realtor to have the background you have. Would you agree with that? Yes and no. We all have crazy unique stories but I've never stopped and thought about them. I do probably have a little bit of a unique path. There are only a 320 plus interviews. There might be 6 people who knew they were going to be a realtor when they were 12. It's always that second path. It seems like it's such a heavy influence there. You're in Portland doing some great stuff. We'll chat about that but you're not a native Oregonian. Let's start at the beginning. What was home for you? Where did you grow up? I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. My parents are immigrants. They got married in India and settled in Michigan in 1964. I was born and raised there. I've had some people from Michigan but maybe not Detroit. I love the way these answers can go and never know. First of all, I want to hear a little bit about growing up there. Give me the biggest misconception about that area. Detroit is not as crazy, rough or violent as some people assume that Downtown Detroit is scary. I had a great Midwestern upbringing. We did grow up in the suburbs and Detroit, the city, Downtown has changed a lot. There was a time when we didn't hang out there and the biggest surprise in Detroit is Downtown Detroit itself. It is the place. We call it the D. It's where all the sports teams play. It's got a burgeoning food scene, great rooftop bars and craft breweries. It's a fun place. Most people would not know or even assume that. They would avoid downtown because of some preconceptions from way back when. [caption id="attachment_4330" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Keller Williams: The cool thing with sports management is you can work with the team. You can do the ticket size and sales and sponsorships. There's so many elements of it. And the idea is to kind of try different things out, to figure out what you like and what you don't.[/caption]   What part of the suburbs did you go to? I grew up in this place, Shelby Township, Michigan. I was born and raised in Warren. My dad was 30 years in Chrysler. Back then, especially if you were from a different country like India, it was the Silicon Valley before Silicon Valley. A lot of young engineers from countries like India were able to get to Detroit, Michigan because companies like GM, Ford and Chrysler needed engineers. That was a way for my dad to get there, get citizenship, add value and provide a contribution to the companies....

This week on Inside the Skev, we are joined by Dr. Daniel Aschheim. He currently serves as Deputy Consul General at the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest. He was appointed to this Chicago-based post in September of 2020 where he assumed the role as Consul for Public Diplomacy serving as the spokesperson for the Consulate's nine-state Midwestern region. This episode is also being released on my sister podcast, The Real Estate Diplomat.  In this episode we discuss a multitude of topics such as the role of the Consulate; Israel's programming within the Midwest; issues relating to terrorism and Iran; Israel's response to the Pandemic; Israel's stance on the war in Ukraine; American investment in Israel and Israeli investment within the Chicagoland area. More information on the Israeli Consulate to the Midwest can be found here: https://embassies.gov.il/chicago/Pages/default.aspxThis episode is dedicated to my late grandfather, Eugene Chez, who passed away on June 23rd. Inside the Skev is a one stop shop for all things Skokie and Evanston hosted by Aaron Masliansky. Be the first to know about local events, new podcast episodes, real estate and the latest stories about the great people in these towns by going to http://www.skevanston.com. Sign up for the newsletter and reach out to Aaron Masliansky at aaron@skevanston.com with any questions or suggestions. Shoutout to First Class Moving & Storage and Lapin Systems for sponsoring this episode!

To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on June 25. Free subscribers got it on June 28. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription.WhoRusty Gregory, CEO of Alterra Mountain Company, owner of the Ikon PassRecorded onJune 23, 2022About Alterra Mountain CompanyOwned by: KSL Capital and Henry Crown and CompanyAbout the Ikon PassHere’s a breakdown of all the ski areas that are party to Alterra’s Ikon Pass:Why I interviewed himIn its first five years, Alterra has gotten just about everything right – or about as right as any ski company can as it Starfoxes its way through an asteroid belt filled with Covid and empowered workers and shattered supply chains and The Day After Tomorrow weather patterns and an evolving social fabric and the sudden realization by U.S. Americans that there’s such a thing as outside. The company changed the name of one of America’s iconic resorts, managed a near meltdown of its Pacific Northwest anchor, met Covid as well as it could, and continually tweaked Ikon Pass access tiers to avoid overwhelming partner mountains while still offering skiers good value. Oh, and adding Sun Valley, Snowbasin, Chamonix, Dolomiti Superski, Kitzbühel, Schweitzer, Red Mountain, Mt. Bachelor, and Windham to the pass – all since Covid hit.If it’s all seemed a little improvisational and surprising, that’s because it has been. “I have a great propensity for enjoying chaos and anarchy,” Gregory tells me in the podcast. That explains a lot. In the frantic weeks after Covid zipped North American skiing shut in March 2020, angry skiers demanded concessions for lost spring skiing. Vail released, all at once, an encyclopedic Epic Pass credit plan, which metered discounts based upon number of days skied and introduced an “Epic Coverage” program that secured your investment in the event of everything from a Covid resurgence to the death of a beloved houseplant. Alterra, meanwhile, spun its plan together in four dispatches weeks apart – a renewal discount here, a deferral policy there, an extension six weeks later. “We’re continuing to strengthen our offerings,” Gregory told me on the podcast mid-way through this staggered rollout.In other words, Dude, just chill. We’ll get it right. Whether they ultimately did or not – with their Covid response or anything else – is a bit subjective. But I think they’ve gotten more right than wrong. There was nothing inevitable about Alterra or the Ikon Pass. Vail launched the Epic Pass in 2008. It took a decade for the industry to come up with an effective response. The Mountain Collective managed to gather all the best indies into a crew, but its reach was limited, with just two days at each partner. M.A.X. Pass, with five days per partner, got closer, but it was short on alpha mountains such as Jackson Hole or Snowbird (it did feature Big Sky, Copper, Steamboat, and Winter Park) and wasn’t a season pass to any ski area. The Ikon Pass knitted together an almost impossible coalition of competitors into a coherent product that was an actual Epic Pass equal. Boyne, Powdr, and the ghosts of Intrawest joining forces was a bit like the Mets and the Red Sox uniting to take on the Yankees. It was – and is – an unlikely coalition of competitors fused around a common cause.The Ikon Pass was a great idea. But so was AOL-Time Warner – or so it seemed at the time. But great things, combined, do not always work. They can turn toxic, backfire, fail. Five years in, Alterra and Ikon have, as Gregory tells me, “dramatically exceeded our expectations in every metric for the fifth year in a row.” While Rusty is allergic to credit, he deserves a lot. He understands how complex and unruly and unpredictable skiing and the ski industry is. He came up under the tutelage of the great and feisty Dave McCoy, founder of the incomparable and isolated Mammoth Mountain, that snowy California kingdom that didn’t give a damn what anyone else was doing. He understood how to bring people together while allowing them to exist apart. That’s not easy. I can’t get 10 people to agree to a set of rules at a tailgate cornhole tournament (the beer probably doesn’t help). Everyone who loves the current version of lift-served skiing – which can deliver a skier to just about any chairlift in the United States on a handful of passes (and that’s definitely not all of you), and has inspired an unprecedented wave of ski area re-investment – owes Gregory at least a bit of gratitude.What we talked aboutThe accidental CEO; Alterra’s “first order of business was to do no harm”; Rusty’s mindset when the Ikon Pass launched; the moment when everyone began believing that the Ikon Pass would work; reflections on the first five years of Alterra and Ikon; the challenges of uniting far-flung independent ski areas under one coalition; “every year we have to make the effort to stay together”; the radically idiosyncratic individualism of Dave McCoy; what it means that Ikon has never lost a partner – “there’s no points in life for losing friends”; Alterra doesn’t like the Ikon Base Plus Pass either; Covid shutdown PTSD; the long-term impact of Covid on skiing and the world; the risks of complacency around the Covid-driven outdoor boom; why Alterra’s next CEO, Jared Smith, comes from outside the ski industry; how the Ikon Pass and Alterra  needs to evolve; preserving the cultural quirks of individual mountains as Alterra grows and evolves under new leadership; “we dramatically exceeded our expectations in every metric for the fifth year in a row”; the importance of ceding local decisions to local resorts; “I have a great propensity for enjoying chaos and anarchy”; the current state of the labor market; Ikon Pass sales trends; “having too many people on the mountain at one time is not a great experience”; staying “maniacally guest-experience focused”; Crystal Mountain’s enormous pass price increase for next season; why Deer Valley and Alta moved off the Base Pass for next season; Mayflower, the resort coming online next to Deer Valley; the Ikon Session Pass as a gateway product; why Alterra pulled Mammoth, Palisades Tahoe, and Sugarbush off the Mountain Collective Pass; Sun Valley and Snowbasin joining Ikon; Ikon’s growing European network; whether Alterra would ever look to buy in Europe; “we’re making constant efforts” to sign new Ikon Pass partners; “we’re very interested in Pennsylvania”; I just won’t let the fact that KSL owns Blue and Camelback go; “Alterra needs to move at the right pace”; whether we will ever see more Ikon partners in the Midwest; why Alterra hasn’t bought a ski area since 2019; whether Alterra is bidding on Jay Peak; and thoughts on Rob Katz’s “growth NIMBYism” speech.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewGregory has been Alterra’s CEO for about four and a half years. That seems to be about four and a half years longer than he wanted the job. In 2017, he was enjoying retirement after four decades at Mammoth. As an investor in the nascent Alterra Mountain Company – a Frankenski made up of Mammoth, Palisades Tahoe, and the remains of Intrawest – he helped conduct a wide-reaching search for the company’s first CEO. He ended up with the job not through some deft power play but because the committee simply couldn’t find anyone else qualified to take it.His only plan, he said, was to do no harm. There are, as we have seen, plenty of ways to make multi-mountain ski conglomerates fail. Boyne alone has managed the trick over the extra long term (a fact that the company does not get nearly enough credit for). The years after Gregory took the job in February 2018 certainly tested whether Alterra and Ikon, as constructs, were durable beyond the stoke of first concept.They are. And he’s done. At 68, confined for the past half decade to a Denver office building, I get the sense that Gregory is ready to get away from his desk and back in the liftline (or maybe not – “I will be so pissed if I have to wait in a line,” he tells me on the podcast). He’s earned the break and the freedom. It’s someone else’s turn.That someone else, as we learned last month, will be Jared Smith, Alterra’s current president. Gregory will move into a vice chairman of the board role, a position that I suspect requires extensive on-the-ground snow reporting. Smith, who joined Alterra last year after nearly two decades with Live Nation/Ticketmaster, has plenty to prove. As I wrote in May:Gregory was the ultimate industry insider, a college football player-turned-liftie who worked at Mammoth for 40 years before taking the top job at Alterra in 2018. He’d been through the battles, understood the fickle nature of the ski biz, saved Mammoth from bankruptcy several times. Universally liked and respected, he was the ideal leader for Alterra’s remarkable launch, an aggressive and unprecedented union of the industry’s top non-Vail operators, wielding skiing’s Excalibur: a wintry Voltron called the Ikon Pass. That such disparate players – themselves competitors – not only came together but continued to join the Ikon Pass has no doubt been at least partly due to Gregory’s confidence and charisma.Smith came to Alterra last June after 18 years at Live Nation and Ticketmaster. I don’t know if he even skis. He is, by all accounts, a master of building products that knit consumers to experiences through technology. That’s a crucial skillset for Alterra, which must meet skiers on the devices that have eaten their lives. But technology won’t matter at all if the skiing itself suffers. Alterra has thrived as the anti-Vail, a conglomerate with an indie sheen. Will the Ikon Pass continue to tweak access levels to mitigate crowding? Will Alterra continue its mega-investments to modernize and gigantify its resorts? Can the company keep the restless coterie of Boyne, Powdr, Jackson Hole, Alta, Taos, A-Basin, Revelstoke, Red, and Schweitzer satisfied enough to stay united on a single pass? For Alterra, and for the Ikon Pass, these are the existential questions.I have been assured, by multiple sources, that Smith does, in fact, ski. And has an intuitive understanding of where consumers need to be, helping to transform Ticketmaster from a paper-based anachronism into a digital-first experience company. Covid helped accelerate skiing’s embrace of e-commerce. That, according to Gregory, is just the beginning. “Different times require different leadership, and Jared Smith is the right leader going forward,” Gregory tells me in the podcast.Alterra’s first five years were a proof of concept: can the Ikon Pass work? Yes. It works quite well. Now what? They’ve already thought of all the obvious things: buy more mountains, add more partners, play with discounts to make the thing attractive to loyalists and families. But how does Alterra sew the analogue joy that is skiing’s greatest pull into the digital scaffolding that’s hammering the disparate parts of our modern existence together? And how does it do that without compromising the skiing that must not suffer? Is that more difficult than getting Revelstoke and Killington and Taos to all suit up in the same jersey? It might be. But it was a good time to get Gregory on the line and see how he viewed the whole thing before he bounced.Questions I wish I’d askedEven though this went long, there were a bunch of questions I didn’t get to. I really wanted to ask how Alterra was approaching the need for more employee housing. I also wanted to push a little more on the $269 Steamboat lift tickets – like seriously there must be a better way. I also think blackout dates need to evolve as a crowding counter-measure, and Vail and Alterra both need to start thinking past holiday blackouts (as Indy has already done quite well). I’ve also been preoccupied lately with Alterra’s successive rolling out of megaprojects at Palisades Tahoe and Steamboat and Winter Park, and what that says about the company’s priorities. This also would have been a good time to check in on Alterra’s previously articulated commitments to diversity and the environment. These are all good topics, but Alterra has thus far been generous with access, and I anticipate ample opportunities to raise these questions with their leadership in the future.What I got wrongWell despite immense concentration and effort on my part, I finally reverted to my backwater roots and pronounced “gondola” as “gon-dole-ah,” a fact that is mostly amusing to my wife. Rusty and I vacillated between 61 million and 61.5 million reported U.S. skier visits last year. The correct number was 61 million. I also flip-flopped Vail’s Epic Pass sales number and stated at one point that the company had sold 1.2 million Epic Passes for the 2021-22 ski season. The correct number is 2.1 million – I did issue a midstream correction, but really you can’t clarify these things enough.Why you should consider an Ikon PassI feel a bit uncomfortable with the wording of this section header, but the “why you should ski X” section is a standard part of The Storm Skiing Podcast. I don’t endorse any one pass over any other – my job is simply to consider the merits and drawbacks of each. As regular readers know, pass analysis is a Storm pillar. But the Ikon Pass is uniquely great for a handful of reasons:An affordable kids’ pass. The Ikon Pass offers one of the best kids’ pass deals in skiing. Early-birds could have picked up a full Ikon Pass (with purchase of an adult pass) for children age 12 or under for $239. A Base Pass was $199. That’s insane. Many large ski areas – Waterville Valley, Mad River Glen – include a free kids pass with the purchase of an adult pass. But those are single-mountain passes. The Ikon lets you lap Stratton from your weekend condo, spend Christmas break at Snowbird, and do a Colorado tour over spring break. The bargain child’s pass is not as much of a differentiator as it once was – once Vail dropped Epic Pass prices last season, making the adult Epic Pass hundreds of dollars cheaper than an Ikon Pass, the adult-plus-kids pass equation worked out about the same for both major passes. Still, the price structures communicate plenty about Alterra’s priorities, and it’s an extremely strong message.A commitment to the long season. On April 23 this year, 21 Ikon partners still had lifts spinning. Epic passholders could access just nine resorts. That was a big improvement from the previous season, when the scorecard read 20-2 in favor of Ikon. Part of this is a coincidence – many of Alterra’s partners have decades-long histories of letting skiers ride out the snow: Killington, Snowbird, Arapahoe Basin, Sugarloaf. Others. But part of it is Alterra’s letting of big operational decisions to its individual resorts. If Crystal Mountain wants to stay open into June, Crystal Mountain stays open into June. If Stevens Pass has a 133-inch base on April 18… too bad. Closing day (in 2021) is April 18. The long season doesn’t matter to a lot of skiers. But to the ones it does matter to, it matters a lot. Alterra gets that.That lineup though… The Ikon Pass roster has been lights out from day one. But as the coalition has added partners, and as key mountains have migrated from Epic to Ikon, it has grown into the greatest collection of ski areas ever assembled. As I wrote in March:Whatever the reason is that Snowbasin and Sun Valley fled Epic, the ramifications for the North American multipass landscape are huge. So is Alterra’s decision to yank its two California flagships and its top-five New England resort off of the Mountain Collective. Those two moves gave the Ikon Pass the best top-to-bottom destination ski roster of any multi-mountain ski pass on the continent.Good arguments can still be made for the supremacy of the Epic Pass, which delivers seven days at Telluride and unlimited access to 10 North American megaresorts: Whistler, Northstar, Heavenly, Kirkwood, Park City, Crested Butte, Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone, and Breckenridge, plus Stowe, one of the top two or three ski areas in the Northeast.But many of Vail’s ski areas are small and regionally focused. I like Hunter and Jack Frost and Roundtop and Mount Brighton, Michigan, and their value as businesses is unquestioned, both because they are busy and because they draw skiers from rich coastal and Midwestern cities to the Mountain West. But the Epic Pass’ 40-some U.S. and Canadian mountains are, as a group, objectively less compelling than Ikon’s.The Ikon Pass now delivers exclusive big-pass access to Steamboat, Winter Park, Copper Mountain, Palisades Tahoe, Mammoth, Crystal Washington, Red Mountain, Deer Valley, Solitude, and Brighton, as well as a killer New England lineup of Killington, Stratton, Sugarbush, Sunday River, and Loon. The pass also shares big-mountain partners with Mountain Collective: Alta, Arapahoe Basin, Aspen Snowmass, Banff Sunshine, Big Sky, Jackson Hole, Lake Louise, Revelstoke, Snowbasin, Snowbird, Sugarloaf, Sun Valley, and Taos. For pure fall-line thrills and rowdy, get-after-it terrain, there is just no comparison on any other pass.In large parts of America, it’s become impossible to imagine not buying an Ikon Pass. The lineup is just too good. Epic still makes more sense in many circumstances. But for the neutral party, aimed primarily for big-mountain destinations in a city not defined by access to a local, the Ikon is telling a damn good story.Podcast NotesRusty and I talked a bit about the huge jump in Crystal’s pass price for next season. Here’s a more comprehensive look that I wrote in March, based on conversations with Crystal CEO Frank DeBerry and a number of local skiers.We also discuss Mayflower Mountain Resort, which is to be built adjacent to Deer Valley. Here’s a bit more about that project, which could offer 4,300 acres on 3,000 vertical feet. The developers will have to overcome the ski area’s relatively low elevation, which will be compounded by Utah’s larger water issues.Rusty explained why Alterra pulled Palisades Tahoe, Mammoth, and Sugarbush off the Mountain Collective pass ahead of next ski season. Here were my initial thoughts on that move. A tribute to Mammoth Mountain founder Dave McCoy, who died in 2020 at age 104:Previous Storm Skiing Podcasts with Rusty or Ikon Pass mountain leadersThe Summit at Snoqualmie President & GM Guy Lawrence – April 20, 2022Arapahoe Basin COO Alan Henceroth – April 14, 2022Big Sky President & COO Taylor Middleton – April 6, 2022Solitude President & COO Amber Broadaway – March 5, 2022The Highlands at Harbor Springs President & GM Mike Chumbler – Feb. 18, 2022Steamboat President & COO & Alterra Central Region COO Rob Perlman – Dec. 9, 2021Jackson Hole President Mary Kate Buckley – Nov. 17, 2021Crystal Mountain, Washington President & CEO Frank DeBerry – Oct. 22, 2021Boyne Mountain GM Ed Grice – Oct. 19, 2021Mt. Buller, Australia GM Laurie Blampied – Oct. 12, 2021Aspen Skiing Company CEO Mike Kaplan – Oct. 1, 2021Taos Ski Valley CEO David Norden – Sept. 16, 2021Alterra CEO Rusty Gregory – March 25, 2021Sunday River GM Brian Heon – Feb. 10, 2021Windham President Chip Seamans – Jan. 31, 2021Sugarbush President & GM John Hammond – Nov. 2, 2020Sugarloaf GM Karl Strand – Part 2 – Sept. 30, 2020Sugarloaf GM Karl Strand – Part 1 – Sept. 25, 2020Palisades Tahoe President & COO Ron Cohen – Sept. 4, 2020Alterra CEO Rusty Gregory – May 5, 2020Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher – April 1, 2020Sunday River President & GM Dana Bullen – Feb. 14, 2020Loon Mountain President & GM Jay Scambio – Feb. 7, 2020Sugarbush President & COO Win Smith – Jan. 30, 2020Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher – Nov. 21, 2019Killington & Pico President & GM Mike Solimano – Oct. 13, 2019Future Storm Skiing Podcasts scheduled with Ikon Pass mountainsBoyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher – September 2022Sun Valley VP & GM Pete Sonntag – September 2022The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 69/100 in 2022, and number 315 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Please be patient - my response may take a while. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

What Does HIPAA Actually Do? HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is name dropped a lot, but frequently misunderstood. Many are surprised to find that the “P” stands for portability, not privacy.  Misunderstandings about what's protected under the law go way deeper than its name. The law outlines protections only for health information shared between patients and health care providers. This means that any personal health data shared with someone who is not specifically mentioned in the law is not covered.  If a period tracking app shares personal health information with Facebook, that's not a violation of HIPAA. Neither is asking for someone's vaccination status.  Guest host Maddie Sofia talks with Tara Sklar, professor of health law and director of the Health Law & Policy Program at the University of Arizona, to explain what's actually covered under HIPAA.   “Research By Us And For Us”: How Medical Research Can Better Serve Trans Communities Trans medical care isn't new or experimental, and study after study has shown that transition-related procedures—such as hormone therapies and surgeries—are incredibly safe and effective. But most long-term studies on trans health focus on the first few years after transitioning, leaving unanswered questions about the years after. Similar to members of other marginalized groups, trans people have long been treated like “case studies,” rather than potential experts when it comes to scientific research. So while researchers have studied trans bodies for decades, they haven't always asked trans people what they need to know about their own bodies, such as: If I'm pursuing medical transition, how will my bone density change after years of taking estrogen? If I take testosterone, will I also need to get a hysterectomy? How will my hormonal and surgical options affect my fertility?  Now, a new wave of medical research—led by trans medical experts themselves—is trying to fill in those blanks and address the needs of trans communities. Guest host Maddie Sofia speaks with Dr. Asa Radix, the senior director of research and education at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, and Dallas Ducar, nurse practitioner and founding CEO of Transhealth Northampton. They talk about the state of research on trans health, and how studies can better address the needs of the trans and gender diverse communities.   Food Pantry Venison May Contain Lead Iowa requires warning labels about the possible presence of lead in shot-harvested venison. Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska do not. A walk-in freezer about two stories high sits in one corner of a warehouse owned by a food bank called Hawkeye Area Community Action Program Inc. in Hiawatha, Iowa. Chris Ackman, the food bank's communication manager, points to the shelving racks where any donated venison the organization receives is typically stored. Known as the Help Us Stop Hunger, or HUSH, program, the venison is donated by hunters from around the state, and Ackman says the two-pound tubes of ground meat go pretty quickly, lasting only a few months. “It's a pretty critical program, I think, because there are a lot of hunters in Iowa,” he said. “And, it's well enjoyed by a lot of families as well.” Similar programs around the country have been applauded as a way for hunters to do something they enjoy while also helping feed those in need. Iowa hunters donate around 3,500 deer a year through the program. From the hunters, the deer goes to a meat locker, where it's ground, packaged and shipped off to food pantries around the state. But before it hits the shelves, Iowa officials require a warning label on the venison package. The label reads: “Lead fragments may be found in processed venison. Children under 6 years and pregnant women are at the greatest risk from lead.” Then, in bold type, the label notes: “Iowa has not found cases of lead poisoning from lead in venison,” along with a number to call for more information. Iowa stands out among Midwestern states in requiring a label warning about the potential hazard of lead ammunition and the fragments it can leave behind in shot-harvested game meat like venison. Donated venison in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska come with no similar warning label. Read more at sciencefriday.com. Museum Exhibit Celebrates Queerness In Science Last year, the California Academy of Sciences debuted “New Science: The Academy Exhibit,” which celebrates 23 incredible LGBTQIA+ scientists. The folks in this exhibit are challenging the exclusionary practices that are all too common in scientific spaces, with the aim of creating a more inclusive and welcoming environment. It is a celebration of queerness in science. Guest host Maddie Sofia talks with the curator of this exhibit, Lauren Esposito, who is a curator of arachnology at the California Academy of Sciences and founder of 500 Queer Scientists, based in San Francisco. They discuss the exhibit, the importance of LGBTQIA+ representation in STEM, and, of course, arachnids. The exhibit is free and open to the public at the California Academy of Sciences, and it is also available online.   Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs at sciencefriday.com.      

Jill is a journalist, academic, and the author of five books. She’s best known as the first woman to become executive editor at the New York Times, from 2011 to 2014. She’s currently a professor in the English department at Harvard. We’ve been friends forever.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or click the dropdown menu to add the Dishcast to your podcast feed). For two clips of our convo — on whether women are better observational reporters, and looking back at the Supreme Court saga of “Long Dong Silver” — head over to our YouTube page.We have a new transcript posted for posterity: Jamie Kirchick on his new history of gay Washington, recorded in front of a live audience at Twenty Summers in Ptown. If you missed it, here’s a teaser:With Pride still marching along this month, a reader writes:You frequently cover the takeover of the gay rights movement by transgender ideology, and how that can be at odds with the sex-based rights our generation fought for. I want to share a glimpse that I got at another under-discussed appropriation of the movement that’s significantly less threatening, but still leaves me feeling a bit out in the cold as a gay man: Pride going mainstream.I live in a small Midwestern exurb that recently began hosting its own Pride parade. This is not a small event — the banners go up well before June and stick around much of the summer, and it draws a crowd on par with our largest town festivals. I’ve generally avoided it, assuming it would be chock full of pink-and-blue flags and wanting to spare myself the political frustration. I also figured that a Pride parade in a town like mine indicated how unnecessary Pride parades have become.But this year I found out my (straight) brother was bringing his family, including my very young nieces and nephews. I wanted to see the kids, and I hoped my presence might provide some contrast to whatever left-wing antics they saw there. I was also curious how a Pride parade could possibly be family friendly enough for elementary school kids.Long story short, the whole thing was incredibly anodyne. I saw a couple drag queens and exactly one trans flag, but otherwise you would think it was a parade to celebrate rainbows. There were a few other older gay men wandering around, looking as awkward as I was. I had been worried about how to explain things to the kids, but I don’t think they even realized there was any connection to myself or my husband — they were in it mainly to catch candy. I don’t even recall seeing the words “rights” or “equality” mentioned. The messages were along the lines of “Be Yourself” and “Love Wins!”Afterwards, I learned that this event had been founded not by a homosexual, nor by a trans person, but rather by someone’s mother. Her daughter came out to her (I’m not even sure as what) and the mother decided she needed to show her daughter she was loved no matter what. And it all suddenly made sense. This was what a well-meaning mom wants to see when she sees gay pride. Be yourself! Love wins!I don’t want to say this kind of thing should stop. It was a nice enough time, and I don’t disagree with the message. But, I do wish more people understood exactly how unrooted “Pride” has become from the gay culture that started it and the reasons it was necessary. As I explained to my own mother afterwards, I don’t know of any man who had ever been imprisoned or assaulted just for loving another man. It was always about sex, and it’s still about sex. We just can’t mention that at Pride anymore, I guess.I suspect a great deal of this is a function of getting what we asked for — and the consequences of that taking root. Pride now is for straights as much as for gays — just as all the old super-gay events — like the High Heel Drag Race for Halloween in DC - went from being broken up by the cops (in my adult lifetime) to being packed with countless young straight women trying to be cool — and parents and all the letters of the alphabet. I’m made uncomfortable by some of this mass cultural appropriation — but that’s just my nostalgia for an era which I’m glad is now gone. We need to take yes for an answer, and as I wrote nearly 20 years ago, a very distinctive gay culture will end because of it.If you missed last week’s pod with David Goodhart, here’s a primer:This listener enjoyed the episode:On the conversation with David Goodhart, I want to chime in about your argument that one of the great contributions of Christianity, historically, has been reminding smart people that they aren’t any better than anyone else — and might indeed be worse, because of the arrogance and ambition that often accompanies that trait. It reminded me of a seminal moment in my childhood. I was 10, and I had just lost the regional spelling bee in a hard-fought match in which the last kid and I went several rounds before I made an error that he capitalized on. I turned to shake his hand. My dad told me later that night, “When you shook that boy’s hand, I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of you. You showed graciousness in a bitter moment, and it’s one of the hardest things to learn to do. I’m never going to be proud that you’re smart. That was a genetic luck of the draw and you had no more to do with it than you did with having brown hair or being a little scrawny. But how you responded is your character, and I DO care about that, and I am immensely proud of you.”I think the fact that that was a consistent message at home when I was getting a lot of accolades at school probably made me marginally less unbearable than I would have been otherwise. I should say that my family is Southern Baptist; our faith was part of the warp and woof of daily life and the lens through which my parents interpreted life and what was worthy and valuable. Being smart was nice, but not nearly as important as being kind and generous and forgiving. I’m very grateful to have been raised like that.Me too. Another listener also took the convo personally:I’m so grateful for your episode with David Goodhart, which covered a topic that is both intensely personal and professionally important to me. My father is one of seven children of an Italian immigrant who was a short-haul truck driver. He almost flunked out of high school and only finished because his father threatened to kick his ass if he didn’t. Talking to my dad, any highly educated person would instantly dismiss his opinions and observations. But he wouldn’t care. After high school he started his own business — a car repair and towing company. After 40 years he retired with one million dollars, having bought our family home outright and having sent both my sister and myself to college, and me to law school.  Yes, he did this through hard work and persistence, but he also did it through extremely competent business management and strategic savvy. He survived the shutdown of a local mine (70% of his business at the time), the recessions and gas shortages of the 1970's, cyclical recessions and more.  You don’t do that unless you know how to identify risks and opportunities and exploit them to your own advantage. If that isn’t intelligence, I don’t know what is.  I myself work at a talent firm. My job entails creating a business model to help move junior enlisted veterans without college degrees into good-paying jobs with our skilled-manufacturing clients. It’s been fascinating to talk to companies who are still resistant to paying living wages at entry-level positions in the face of literally one million-plus competing job openings. I agree with Goodhart that reality is going to force a lot of rethinking about the value of labor of all kinds. It may take a while, but we are already seeing a few companies that are all-in on paying enough to attract this talent. They are far less nervous about the future.Thank you for this episode, and please find more guests who want to discuss this topic: How to recognize and reward everyone’s strengths, and how to measure success in new ways.  Another listener recommends a guest:I’d love to see you interview Greg Clark, economic historian at UC Davis. His work on the heritability of social status is fascinating. Using surname data from England, he’s found that social status is strongly heritable but that it drifts back to the mean over many generations. So everyone’s ancestors will be elite or downtrodden eventually, but it might take 400 years. The key factor is assortative marriage and mating. Even before women had careers and got educations, you could predict the type of person a woman would marry by looking at the social status of her brother. Clark has shown how the same phenomenon exists in Scandinavia, China, etc. Most interestingly the data show that although income inequality is less in Scandinavian countries because of redistribution, educational and other achievements like admission to scientific societies, it’s just as unequal as other countries. They also show that even communist revolutions in China and Hungary didn’t prevent people with high social status names from reasserting dominance within a generation or two.Twin studies and data where unexpected parental deaths happen show that the differences can’t be environmental. It’s just amazing and totally under reported for obvious reasons, but I do think this data will blow the lid off our current debate. It’s also great that Clark’s data is about white English people and doesn’t involve race at its core. (Here’s a link to one of his key research papers.)I’ve been impressed with Clark since his book, A Farewell To Alms. It’s a great reader suggestion. Get full access to The Weekly Dish at andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

.As the lyrics from the iconic Mary Tyler Moore Show said, “She made it after all!” From another Midwestern town, Milwaukee, with all its 1960's values and normalcy, Susan went on to fame and fortune in Hollywood, had a successful... Read More ›

Short one as we round out June but coming back with hot fire for July. Warrior 06/26 AEW 06/22 OFE 06/25 ACW 06/24 AEW/NJPW 0626 Music: The Crusher by the Nova's

Greg Warren hails from St. Louis, MO, where his father was a high school wrestling coach and his mother made him play clarinet in the band. Greg captivated audiences with anecdotes about the conflict inherent in meshing two high school identities-varsity wrestler and band geek. He was a D1 All-American wrestler at Mizzou.Greg's "Flute Man" bit is a perfect capsulation of the insecurities of high school and the ongoing quest to be cool, and is one of the most requested bits in the history of the "Bob and Tom" radio show. Greg was also a West Point Cadet, where he distinguished himself by amassing an impressive tally of demerits and endless hours of pointless marching. After moving on to the University of Missouri, he studied journalism and was named an All-American college wrestler.Early careerWhile in college, Greg won a comedy contest and was invited to perform at a local club in Columbia, Missouri, Dèjà Vu. After a stint selling Jif and Pringles for corporate giant Procter & Gamble, Greg made the decision to become a full time comedian. This bold move led to an invitation to the prestigious "Just for Laughs Festival" in Montreal in 2002, where Greg performed as one of their featured "New Faces of Comedy".WorkHe has also been seen on the Comedy Central show, "Premium Blend". Greg has an arsenal of characters that he brings to life in his act. He also highlights his current life struggles with the service industry, moderation, and "One Star People".In addition to his television and festival appearances, Greg continues to tour all across the country, performing his act at clubs such as the Funny Bone and the Improv and is a frequent guest on the Bob and Tom Radio Show and a featured guest every Wednesday on Pittsburgh's DVE Morning Show with Jim and Randy. Greg's background recently resulted in a gig doing color commentary on college wrestling for Fox Sports Midwest. Greg's Midwestern upbringing and his ability to provide humorous social commentary gives him a wealth of material that continues to gain him fans throughout the country.Recently, Greg has been seen on CMT's Comedy Stage, NBC's Last Comic Standing, CBS's Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and the "Nateland" Podcast.https://www.gregwarrencomedy.com/

Maggie Seymour, a Major in the US Marine Corps Reserve and Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State, and (drum roll please)......an avid ultra runner. But not just any runner. She is a runner on a mission. Check out this episode where we talk about her mission and the stigma of running while pregnant. So random! But we go where the conversation needs to take us.  She's a small-town Midwestern girl at heart who believes in the power of hard work, education, community, and carbs. In 2017 she ran across the nation to raise awareness and support for those who supported her during her military career. Now she's setting out to run across the rest of the 50 states benefitting the causes you care about the most. You can read about that at www.runfreerun.com She is an ACE certified personal trainer and health coach, an RRCA Level II certified run coach, and USATF Level I certified track and field coach with Hart Strength and Endurance Coaching. In her off the road life, she holds a BA in Political Science, an MA in Military History, an MA in Journalism, and a PhD in International Studies. She is currently working on a Masters in Sociology and a Masters in Joint Leadership. When Maggie is not running she's working, writing, cooking/baking, studying, or chasing after her 1 yr old son with the help of her 11-yr-old stepdaughter and partner.CONNECT WITH MAGGIE:INSTAGRAMWEBSITETWITTERFACEBOOK

INTRO: Welcome to My Big Fat Bloody Mary podcast where you will never drink alone. We are coming to you from the studios of the Bloody Mary Concert Series.  Intro Guest : Mike Scott Plug Guest – https://www.footstepsoflacrosse.org/ La Crosse Distillery-Field Notes Whose corn-based vodka is just that, 100% Midwestern organic …

Comedian Wes Ward joins the podcast to discuss Alexander Payne's idiosyncratic Midwestern masterpiece Nebraska. Follow Wes on Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok: @weswardcomedy Follow the podcast on Instagram and Twitter: @WeAreMoviesPod Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeAreMoviesPodcast Follow Johnny on Letterboxd: @JohnnyMocny

Dreams of Consciousness Podcast Episode 231 features an interview with Jaleel Castillo and Matti Güey of Rottenness. Rottenness have been around in some form for almost 30 years. Originally based in Mexico, the band's current line-up includes members of various Midwestern death metal and grindcore acts, including Formless Master, Gorgotron, and Invidiosus. What hasn't changed is the band's commitment to brutal, unrelenting music. I spoke with guitarist/founder Jaleel Castillo and vocalist Matti Güey about how the band's current line-up coalesced into its present form, and why there are no rules for Rottenness other than "death metal". We also discussed how their latest album Violentopia was written and recorded with the band members spread across various cities, and what's left on Jaleel's bucket list. My thanks to Jaleel and Matti Güey for speaking with me, and to all of you for listening. Music In This Episode: "Fistfuck" taken from the album Die Wege Der Lust "Violentopia" "Bitchmade at Birth" taken from the album Violentopia "Embodiment of an Impulse and Excess" taken from the Dead Root/Rottenness Split Thanks for listening! Interviews, reviews, and more at www.dreamsofconsciousness.com

Episode 258 of Boss Hog of Liberty is out! Our program is community supported on Patreon. Do your part by chipping into the cause by donating monthly at any level at www.patreon.com/bosshogofliberty and receive even more BONUS coverage and content. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

.As the lyrics from the iconic Mary Tyler Moore Show said, “She made it after all!” From another Midwestern town, Milwaukee, with all its 1960's values and normalcy, Susan went on to fame and fortune in Hollywood, had a successful... Read More ›

In this World Footprints podcast, Tonya and Ian Fitzpatrick explore the life and times of Winston Churchill, his impact on the world and his relationship with the small town of Fulton, Missouri (MO).

What up High5ers, in addition to promo's for all these amazing shows here in the Midwest Wrasslin, I talked to Ref Jerry aboat the upcoming ICW Milwaukee show for the family. Shows included this week. ICW 06/17 BCW 06/18 JWA 06/18 Warrior 06/18 06/26 AEW 06/22 OFE 06/25 ACW 06/24 AEW?NJPW 0626 Music: The Crusher by the Nova's

Benjamin Wagner is the founder of a consulting firm called Essential Industries Inc, but that's not all he does or has done. Over the course of his life, Benjamin has worn the hats of journalism, musician and filmmaker, co-creating the PBS documentary "Mister Rogers & Me". He hosts a podcast called "Friends & Neighbors". Friends & Neighbors is a show fundamentally about empathy, listening to the stories of others' life experiences. It shares quite a bit ideologically with this podcast. So, there's no coincidence that I was a guest on Friends & Neighbors just a week ago. Benjamin was more than happy to return the favor and I hope that this is the first conversation of many on and offline.   This particular conversation follows Benjamin's journey from the Midwestern-born child of divorce to his moves up the corporate ladder to realizing that being a corporate big shot was killing him--and the moves that he's made since then. Here's my new pal Benjamin Wagner. Enjoy.

Some huge news in the world of higher education you may have missed: Mitch Daniels will retire as President of Purdue on January 1st. Why should it matter that a president of a Midwestern university is resigning? Because there's a lot we can all learn from President Daniels about how to fix what is wrong in higher education. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Claire Denson is a Brooklyn-based book publicity manager, editor, and poet. Evan Williams is a Midwestern poet and essayist studying at the University of Chicago. Ed Grabianowski is a freelance writer and the singer in a band called Spacelord. (Transcript) Welcome to Micro, a podcast for short, but powerful writing. I'm your host, Drew Hawkins.Continue reading "Denson x Williams x Grabianowski"

I love seeing friends do amazing things.Just this last week, a group of friends did such an amazing thing. Midwestern country band, Sack of Lions, just released a phenomenal new single: "Take Me Away." I've had the pleasure of knowing the guys for many years and have watched their journey with excitement. Band leader, Dan Olsen, joins me to talk about the band's journey, the new single, Below Deck, and we discuss how marketing has changed for bands in recent years.

Things get reaalllllllll midwestern when Joe is joined by the hilarious Charlie Berens. They chat about Ranch dressing, ice fishing, and all manner of midwestern tropes before getting into some amazing listener emails. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the episode, Joe, Jen, and Tom cover the latest news and social media shenanigans (including some enticing hints about season two!), and are joined by special guests Jess and Master of the Deck, to discuss this summer's event, WoTCon! Find out all the latest news, including some surprise guests, and stay for the fun! Hear Master of the Deck bring the latest #CatNews! Hear Jess explain the hazards of high cabinets! Hear new Midwestern slang! As always, spoilers abound, as do pool parties!News: https://www.consideramazon.com/title/the-wheel-of-timeGet your tickets: https://wotcon.com/Check out Jess: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheAmyrlinsStudyhttps://www.thegreatblight.com/tarvalonafterdarkFollow Master of the Deck: https://twitter.com/panmalazanPlease show your support by rating/reviewing us. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1479634263https://www.talkaranrhiod.com/Email: podcast@talkaranrhiod.comTwitter: @arantalkInstagram: talk_aran_rhiodJoin us on Discord: https://dsc.gg/talkaranrhiodMerch: https://www.newcreationsbyjen.com/collections/talkaranrhiodSupport the show

How did Mike start Ray Gun?Where do they have storefronts? How many employees do they have?

Summertime in Florida. Tourists flock to the subtropical paradise for its beautiful beaches, abundant sunshine, and the magical allure of Disney World. For one Midwestern mother and her two teenaged daughters, a trip to the Sunshine State seemed like a dream vacation. But the promise of a sunset cruise by a friendly stranger turned that dream into a deadly nightmare. This is the true story of that tragic encounter and the hunt for the Sunset Killer, a modern American Monster. AMERICAN MONSTER: The Search for the Sunset Killer-J.T. Hunter

Holmberg's Morning Sickness - Thursday June 9, 2022

What up High5ers, in addition to promo's for all the shows in the Midwest I have my good friend Trent Zuberi on to talk aboat the stacked AAW show Crush and Destroy going on at Logan Square in Chicago June 11th. Promotions covered: AWF 06/10 AAW 06/11 GLCW 06/12 Galli Lucha 06/12 ICW 06/17 BCW 06/18 JWA 06/18 Warrior 06/18 06/26 AEW 06/22 OFE 06/25 ACW 06/24 AEW?NJPW 0626 Music: The Crusher by the Nova's Follow AAW at https://aawpro.com for all that happens and to purchase tix. Follow AAW on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AAWPro

#157. Ope! Is it too early to talk college football? Not when Sam Sprunger is around! Sam, fellow midwesterner and OddPods podcaster (of 500 Section Lounge and Big 10+4), hops into Kory's chair for this episode. And while Kory is on a well deserved vacation, we take the moment to discuss sports in the back half of this episode. But before we get into the way-too-early rankings, we spend the first half talking about midwest stereotypes. Discussing corn and beans, saying “ope”, refusing to go first at intersections, and smelling a future rainfall are just a few things we agree are fair markers of life in our parts. We had a lot of fun, and as teased in the episode, there'll be some bonus content on YouTube in the near future which was birthed from this recording. Be on the lookout for that, join us next week, and check out Sam's podcasts! All links are below!500 Section Lounge - https://www.podpage.com/the-500-section-lounge-podcast/Big 10+4 - https://linktr.ee/big10plus4Main Landing Page - https://linktr.ee/fromthemidpod​​​​​​VOICE MAIL! Comment, ask a question, suggest topics - (614) 383-8412Artius Man - https://artiusman.com​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ use discount code "themiddle"

This week, we're joined by missionary kid and lifelong Hong Kong resident, Ian! Ian's family moved to Hong Kong when he was only two years old, and he's spent most of his life there. Many of us that grew up in the church remember missionary families visiting periodically to raise support. Ian has lived on the other side of that equation, and he shares some hilarious stories about visiting small town America as a kid! But first, we're excited to welcome back creator and Casey's wife April Gloria, who joins us to discuss another amazing example of purity culture literature, “Marriable: Taking the Desperate Out of Dating” by Hayley and Michael DiMarco! As you might expect, it's filled with great advice, like “don't marry your best friend unless you're gay,” and “nice guys really do finish last.” Bring a notepad, because you're going to need it! Follow April Gloria on Instagram and Twitter @_aprilgloria, and if you're not in our Discord server, yet, you can find a link on our Instagram page!

In this episode Dr. Chastain and Abby explain puppy mill problems, including:Descriptions of puppy mills and their inspectionsLocations for most puppy millsPuppy problems associated with puppy millsCharacteristics of responsible dog breedersLink to show notes:  BetterAnimalHandling.com

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has awarded nearly $3 million dollars in grants to plant cover crops in six Midwestern states The funding comes as demand for state and federal incentive programs for cover crops often outpaces available funding.

A program helps Midwestern farmers to maintain environmentally responsible practices, a Champaign native competes on Jeopardy, the Champaign Park District is set to celebrate Juneteenth in person, and Champaign city employees wear orange for National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Hosted by Laszlo Richard Toth. Stories by Sidney Malone, Tara Mobasher, Jackie Barba, and Laszlo Richard Toth. Music by Boxout.

Camden and Phil have a wide-ranging conversation about the Midwest as a place and as an idea, focusing particuarly on Phil's lastest book Midwest Futures available from Belt Publishing (https://beltpublishing.com/products/midwest-futures). From the Publisher: The Midwest: Is it middle? Or is it Western? As Phil Christman writes in this idiosyncratic, critically acclaimed essay collection, these and other ambiguities might well be the region's defining characteristic. Deftly combining history, criticism, and memoir, Christman breaks his exploration of midwestern identity, past and present, into a suite of thirty-six brief, interconnected essays. Ranging across material questions of religion, race, class, climate, and Midwestern myth making, the result is a sometimes sardonic, often uproarious, and consistently thought-provoking look at a misunderstood place and the people who call it home.

Hello Airgun Geeks,   Sit back and see how the Show went. Hint!  it went very well. Bill from Target forge Target came into town for the show and a special new airgun My Son Branden discuss all the new and old airguns and his experiences at the show. Like always,    Stay Geeky!!!  Support the show

Picture it, March 19, 2004... Radical Ryan will graduate high school in a few months and a remake of his favorite movie (1978's) "Dawn Of The Dead" is released! Hear what he and brother David think of this film, as we continue the SUMMER OF THE DEAD! "Dawn of the Dead is a 2004 American action horror film directed by Zack Snyder in his directorial debut, from a screenplay by James Gunn. A remake of George A. Romero's 1978 horror film Dawn of the Dead, it stars an ensemble cast that includes Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Ty Burrell, and Mekhi Phifer. Scott Reiniger, Tom Savini, and Ken Foree from the original film also make cameo appearances. A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall." Please Like

Susan Britton, Owner/ Principal Creative Director, Britton Marketing & Design Group (Fort Wayne, IN)   Susan Britton is Owner and Principal Creative Director at Britton Marketing & Design Group, a branding boutique agency that focuses on strategy, design, and helping its color-trended consumer goods clients better brand and market themselves. Sue started her career at Vera Bradley and rode a 9-year growth boom where things changed so rapidly the company had to reinvent itself every six months. (Revenues increased from $10 million to $400 million.) She left Vera Bradley on such good terms that they provided her with furniture for her new company and stayed on as clients with Britton doing catalogs and marketing for them for the next 10 years until Vera Bradley went public.  Sixteen years after she left her position at Vera Bradley, Sue says the experience “gave us a wonderful foundation to work with companies that are focused on home and colors, or fashion” – Britton's niche market. She believes that brands “really take off” when a brand is distinctly “nuanced” in a way that shows the brand is special and the agency builds a “very highly descriptive visual expression” reinforcing the brand identity and couples that with a “strong strategy.” Done right, the created assets can be amortized over time, broadly used, and will promote a “more devoted following.”  As an example of a typical client, Sue talks about working with a number of paint companies, the importance of tracking color trends and building brand uniqueness, and the challenge of reaching out to “the do-it-yourselfers and the do-it-for-mes and then the pros.” Some changes Sue has seen over the years are “a reluctance to invest in creative because it's changing so quickly,” the need for lots of online (and often transitory) creative assets, and the flux of brands vacillating between bringing their creative work inhouse . . . and seeking an external agency. Sue's agency has deleted some staff positions over the years and today outsources to partner vendors such less-frequently used services as building website backends or videography. Sue is a strong believer in work-life balance. Before Covid, her agency interviewed people to discover what they valued . . . and came back with these results: “Their family, whatever that looked like. Their community. Their spirituality, whatever that looked like, or wellness. And then their environment.” She says, “They've circled the wagons around their family in a really, really big way.” She describes this as “the new American middle.” Sue can be reached on her agency's website at: bmdg.com (for Britton Marketing & Design Group), send an email off the site, or email Sue directly at:  sue@bmdg.com Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Susan Britton, Owner and Principal Creative Director at Britton Marketing & Design Group based in my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Welcome to the podcast, Susan. SUE: Thank you, Rob. You can just call me Sue, that's fine. ROB: We'll go with Sue. Yeah, it's excellent to have you here. I want all the Fort Wayne stories that the audience might not want to hear. But why don't we start off first with a little bit of introduction to Britton Marketing & Design Group, and what is the firm's superpower? SUE: Well, we're in Fort Wayne, Indiana because my education happened when I went to work for Vera Bradley, which is located – their headquarters are here in Fort Wayne. I joined Vera Bradley when they were about $10 million, and nine years later they were about $400 million. We tried everything, we experienced everything, and growing at that fast rate, we were reinventing every six months what we were doing. So that was a real privilege, and like I said, a great education. Then I jumped off after about 10 years, and owner/founder Barbara Bradley Baekgaard and her partner, Pat, were really supportive when I left. They gave me furniture from the merchandising department and helped me get set up because they appreciated that they were female entrepreneurs and I wanted to be one again as well. Then we continued to work with Vera Bradley, doing their catalogs and some marketing for the next 10 years until they went public. It really gave us a wonderful foundation to work with companies that are focused on home and colors, or fashion. We worked with Peter Millar as well for a few years, getting them on the map. So really, our superpower, I would say, is design. It sounds very typical, but I think it's sometimes underappreciated. I guess it's hard to define sometimes, but when you have a brand that is really nuanced, when you have a very highly descriptive visual expression of what that brand is coupled with a really strong strategy, that's when it operates on all cylinders and when we've seen brands really take off. I think people talk about it a lot in this industry – the form and function, the art and science – but it has always been true and will continue to be true. ROB: I assume on Day 1, you were the one designer. Is that the case? SUE: Yes. [laughs] I was sitting there looking out the window on a rainy day, at my desk. I had two other family members involved with me, and we were like, “Oh my gosh, what did we just do?” But the work followed, and we worked really hard. It all worked out. We're here 16 years later and still figuring out marketing in the world today, which has gotten very complicated as well. ROB: I was going to ask, because design in and of itself can be a little bit tricky to define, but then the definition has even probably changed on you. How has the nature of the work you do, the services, the deliverables – what has shifted in those 16 years? SUE: I think it's how fast everything – the kind of creative assets that people need constantly, day in and day out online – in the past, when we started out, it was print. Catalog work, and you would do two-week photoshoots. Well, that has really changed because of the tentative nature of the imagery that people need and the quantity of it. But I think what happens today is it's easier to rely more on the science, which is more memorable – how many click-throughs – as we look at the success of an email campaign or whatever, a social media campaign. I've seen a transition for a couple of things. One, a reluctance to invest in creative because it's changing so quickly. But when they don't do that, then you could put anybody's logo on a picture on Instagram, like fashion or even home goods. It really needs to be nuanced in a way that you know when you look at it that that is a special brand. And it takes a little investment to do that, but there is a way that it can be done where you're really creating assets that are amortized over a certain period of time and used in every area. I see when companies do that, they really have a more devoted following. People respond so well to the uniqueness that that brand represents. Secondly, I think I've seen a change where in order to save costs many brands will bring their creative in-house, and that can be very successful, too, if they find the right people. It can also be easily unsuccessful just because of the complacency or the repetitive nature of the work. Focusing on one brand, day in and day out, I think sometimes people lose a little bit of edge. But not necessarily. ROB: There's definitely a lot to consider there. The pendulum of in-house versus – not outsourced, but out of house, working with a creative services firm. That pendulum seems to swing both industry-wide and then some clients really swing that pendulum back and forth as well. You certainly mentioned Vera Bradley as a foundational client; what does your mix of clients look like? Are there typical industries, other key clients you're able to talk about that you've snapped up since then? SUE: Yeah, what's happened since then is we really have honed our expertise in mostly color-trended consumer goods – I can say primarily purchased by women, but sometimes not. We've really worked into a lot of different paint company work. When you think about paint, it's kind of like chemicals in a bucket. It's really all marketing to talk about what's special about that particular brand of paint and to do it in a lifestyle way, but sometimes with humor. It's very color-oriented, so we're always working on trends, looking at trends, trying to look ahead to what's coming up that the consumer is looking forward to seeing. Also, we asked ourselves when we were getting into especially the home goods market, what makes us successful in Fort Wayne with these kinds of customers, the color trending customers, home group customers? We saw that it was like the everyday person. It's you and me, and so many percent of their consumers were everyday people. It wasn't the super high end or super low commodity end. It's really right there in the middle. So we've done a lot of research on that and have built an expertise around that particular consumer. That helps us work with these different companies. ROB: Paint's a really interesting one because nobody looks at your wall and can tell what kind of paint you have, and you probably don't know either. There's not a lot of word-of-mouth there, I don't think. Any paint could be any color. But you have an industry buyer – we've had somebody helping paint our house; I don't even know what they're picking. They know, absolutely, what they're picking for us, and then there's “What do I pick up when I wander down the aisle at Home Depot or Lowe's?” It's anybody, for sure. SUE: Right. And then they also have their pros that they're trying to respond to. They have the do-it-yourselfers and the do-it-for-mes and then the pros. ROB: Yeah, that's what I'm getting at with the pro that we work with. I don't know what they're picking. I don't ask for anything. They tell me where to go pick my colors. They say, “Go to this store and pick a color.” And I listen and I do it. SUE: Right. They have undue influence. [laughs] ROB: [laughs] You got ahead of us on the origin story and where the firm came from, and you mentioned, of course, that you are still the principal creative director, but I'm sure you don't do it all now. What did it look like to bring in let's say the second design creative, and what did it take to get over the hump of you not doing it and letting them do the work? SUE: It's probably a variety of things, but I think what's really important is to not only mentor but provide room for mistakes. We had a saying early on; we bring in interns and grow our own. We would bring someone in and explain the level of quality that our clients expect and then coach them on how to get there and make sure they were getting there. Then they would embrace it. And we really provided a non-threatening environment where people could really grow, we could really mentor them, and give them their own work to own and really work at. That's really what they're doing today. Some people that are here have been here over 10 years, and probably the last group we hired has been for 7 years. So we're probably getting ready to add another couple. But I think the important thing is respecting your team and allowing them to be different from you, but just making sure that the expectations are really clear and the goals of the company are clear too. But we also wanted to create an environment where they could have a life beyond work. I think we've all worked places where we just worked way too many hours and we couldn't have a personal life. Even before COVID, which I think has really brought that whole situation to light, we wanted to create an environment where family also comes first. So, if you're taking care of the people that are working for you, they're your human resources, and respecting them as much as you respect the work I think has been really key to our success and to having a well-oiled machine where everybody has been here a while and keeps it all humming. ROB: Do you think that sort of autonomy is partly – you mentioned people who've been there 7 years, 9 years – do you feel like there's a degree of autonomy where they get to do the work they would do even if they were out on their own, without the headache of being out on their own? Is that some of the mix? What's some of the secret sauce on that kind of longevity? SUE: I think it's very close to what you said. I think it's a way that they feel ownership in the work that they're doing, and as a team, we might group critique something so that it's not really threatening, but we're always looking at improvements so that they can grow into their work and they can own it, and I don't have to look over their shoulder. Because I don't think people really like that. Especially creative people. They have their own expression within a certain frame and having them hone that and be able to do that I think is what creatives really want to do. ROB: Certainly, with the amount of time you've had the firm up and running, I'm sure you've had to make some choices of where to grow and maybe some service offerings and lines of business that you've perhaps decided intentionally to not add. What are some things that maybe you have chosen to not do, maybe you keep partnering on them, maybe you refer them, maybe you say you don't do that? Have there been decisions like that along the way? SUE: Oh yeah, for sure. We used to have a videographer on staff and some photography, and we decided a few years ago that our expertise is a branding boutique agency where we're helping our clients brand themselves better and have a better marketing strategy and better nuanced creative. So we have partners that we use for website backend building or videography or some even just video editing, those kinds of services. We don't always need them consistently, or even photographers, because for every particular job you want to customize the right vendor to that particular project. They all have different levels of need, from high quality to a lower quality maybe, depending on budgets. It's nice to be flexible and then just plug in and play with those other vendors as needed. ROB: Got it. That makes sense. There's an element even where maybe you have enough work to keep a videographer busy, but you really need half or a quarter or a tenth of 10 different videographers rather than ten-tenths of the same person. SUE: Yeah, exactly. That's definitely true. ROB: Sue, as you reflect on the journey so far, what are some of the lessons you've learned in building the business – things you might go back and tell yourself to do differently if you were starting over? SUE: That's a good question. I think building an expertise is so important. I learned that from a fellow that was helping with us, consulting with us on our business a few years ago, and it's the best thing that we've ever done because it helps us focus on what we're really good at, what we have the right to win, and not try to be everything to everyone. I'm sure many agencies go through that, because you really do want to reach. You want to do something new and exciting. And sometimes that's fine, if it's not too far from your expertise, to stretch. But sometimes if you overreach, you get yourself in a difficult position. That's not really good for you and not good for your client, and it's not good for your team. So, I think really understanding what you're good at and owning that is key. In the past, we may have hired people that we thought, “Oh, we're going to build this whole department,” but that really wasn't going to happen. One thing is, people didn't always trust you to be able to do it. They would look at what you were traditionally good at and they would not trust that you could go that far the other direction. So, I do think you have to really focus. ROB: I can see that. It definitely helps you know how to talk to your clients as well, rather than being everything to anyone. But it's hard to get that conviction. You mentioned in some notes as we were getting this scheduled something about the “new American middle.” Tell me about the new American middle. What is that, and what is that expertise? How does that play into the firm? SUE: As we all know, marketing is really about values. If you're in lifestyle marketing, it's really about values, and it's a pretty complicated, noisy world. You're not going to get a chance to remember much about a brand with everything going so quickly, so it's really important that when you're marketing, you're really connecting and resonating with your consumers' values. As we looked at, again, who we were in Fort Wayne, why anybody should work with us, the kind of projects that are a good fit and companies that we could align with, it came back to that everyday person. As we dug in and we did a lot of research, we did some primary research, it was really illuminating to us that – and this was before COVID – we realized that the world had become less certain, and while maybe in the '90s or some of the more consumer-driven decades, things had really changed. When we interviewed people, the most important thing to them was their family, whatever that looked like. Their community. Their spirituality, whatever that looked like, or wellness. And then their environment. Those are the things everyone was really concerned about. They've circled the wagons around their family in a really, really big way. For example, if you're featuring maybe a woman with a handbag and that's the product, so many companies feature it as a product on a person. But if you would reflect them doing things with their family, they may relate to that photo more quickly on a social media post than a single one. It's just an idea of blending and taking your brand and looking at, with your competition also, what are the values that you compete over? What are the values you share? And what is the open space that they're not owning? Many brands are not owning family. If, for example, when you do your research, it pops up as a top important consumer value to those customers, then you can really reflect that through your digital expressions and your copy, etc., if that makes sense. ROB: Yeah, that makes sense. You mentioned also – we talked a little bit about family. I understand that family's also important to how you operate the firm. How have you thought about setting up the work environment, setting up the work, setting up roles in a way that is compatible with families, in a way that maybe other services firms have a hard time with? SUE: I think one thing we do is, for example, with the creative team, we have three different creative directors so that when we're working with a client, usually there's one that's assigned, but they help each other out. So if one's going to be out for a week, they'll double up a little bit and do some handoffs just to get by through that week. And they know each other well enough that they can do that smoothly. In the past, I would say it was not the case. Early on, we had creative directors that were very specific about their work, which was great, but they didn't really overlap. But I think as we've worked into trying to be more flexible in our schedules, we've overlapped with each other so that we can help each other out when the other person's not in, and also, again, the work from home has really helped. I think it's helped many companies realize that, oh, we didn't lose productivity, and oh, this gives us more flexibility to have more work-life balance, and we haven't seen a drop in productivity. I think that's been of the nicer outcomes of COVID. ROB: How are you handling work from home? Is everybody home? Is there still an office? Do people come in anywhere at any particular time? How are you thinking through that? SUE: We feel like for our culture, to maintain a good culture, it's still good to have a building and a place where we can be. So we work two days a week in the office and three days a week from home. But sometimes people don't work in the office for the work because they may have a project that they really want to concentrate on, they don't want the distraction of office. But I think naturally now, the days in office become more meeting-oriented days. It's naturally flowed that way, and then the other days are more work days. I feel like it's been less distracting than when we were in every day. ROB: So, it adds a little bit of predictability, less Swiss cheese on people's schedules of meeting, work, meeting, work, meeting, work. But it also sounds like it's a little bit more of a norm rather than a rule in terms of how many days in the office per week. SUE: Yeah, we don't really use rules here in that fashion. [laughs] We're all here on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, try to get in. And people do. And I think people do like that balance because it orients you to be here and to be able to have meetings together and see each other, and then it's balancing to be able to work from home the other three. ROB: That's good. It's always interesting to hear the different ways that people are handling this. But I do think there's value – if you're going to still hire people and have people in a certain geography, it seems like being in the office sometimes matters. Otherwise, why not just hire somebody somewhere else? Which then you're also competing with everybody everywhere else for talent. SUE: Right. I think that's so true. It is really interesting to us how everybody's handling this whole thing and how it's evolving. It is true you can hire people remotely anywhere these days, and that's a good thing. It can be good and bad. I don't think we would be opposed to hiring somebody out of Fort Wayne, but it does sometimes get more challenging when you're trying to put everything up on a board. I mean, you can Zoom some of that. I think everybody's making it work, but there is a camaraderie. Actually, we do have someone who works out of Fort Wayne at this point and comes in every other week for a couple of days. That's great because you still get to see them. But everybody will handle it differently, I'm sure. ROB: Yeah. It's very, very interesting. I have a friend who just took over as president of an existing agency, and she lives in Atlanta, and the agency is in Knoxville. I think she's going to be up there every other week. It really depends on the age and stage of life. I think her children are grown, college-bound. Flexing life here and there is a better fit for different people at different times. But I think picking a lane – you've picked a lane for your team, and you let them know what the expectation is – that really helps versus what we see in the news where Apple's still trying to get their people to go to the office, but every time they try to get them to go to the office, they complain, a couple of people quit. It becomes this whole fits and starts, and “what are we doing here?” We ended up hiring primarily – during COVID was a lot of our growth, so we ended up being a distributed team without trying. We have folks everywhere from Florida to Georgia to California to now Canada. You know what lane you're in. You pick it, and people who will gravitate towards that will be your tribe, I think. SUE: I think so, too. It's really how you treat each other and how the culture is developed and how you respect each other. That's where people want to work. Location almost doesn't matter anymore. Many of our vendors are all over the U.S. We work with companies for photography, all over. Also video, also web development. You just try to pick the best vendors that you work well with, that you understand their quality level or their style. ROB: Yeah. Sue, when you look ahead, when you're looking at the future of Britton Marketing & Design, you're looking at the future of marketing and design in general, what gets you excited? What should we be looking for? What's coming up? What's going to be our exciting future? SUE: I think for us, we still just love telling a great story about a great brand that people have worked hard to develop and have put their heart and passion into. That'll just never get old, looking at someone's journey of developing an idea and then making it work. That is still really possible in the U.S., and I think that's always an exciting thing for us: to take that beautiful idea, brand that they've developed, and then really illuminate it. Give them a nuanced creative that shows it for what it really is, the heart and soul of somebody's idea, and then really laying that over a really wonderful marketing matrix where you've looked at the most inexpensive yet most effective way for them to go to market, and then how they reach the people who would really like this, who they can really respond to, to make their quality of life better. Also, the conscientious capitalism piece of it. What are people doing? How are they giving back? How are we as a community helping each other grow and be successful? I think whatever form that takes, it's always still going to be a really exciting journey from a marketing standpoint. So many people think of marketing and think, “Oh, they're just trying to sell me something.” No, that's not what we do. That's not what we get up for. It's really a lot more layered than that. ROB: Yeah, you loop it all the way back to the paint conversation. I feel like when I see paint advertising, a lot of it is about creating ideas of what's possible, it's about how you make people feel, it's about a combination of pride and hospitality. And maybe I'm making some of that up, but I think about it more on those levels. I'm not looking for a material datasheet comparing one paint to another. Maybe somebody in an industrial application is, but when I'm thinking about my home, my office, you're not showing me a picture of a bucket most of the time. SUE: Right. It's really your interaction with that brand – how does that brand make you feel about the products they have, the color ranges they have, the names? We had a project with Benjamin Moore years ago where we named a whole set of paint colors, and that was super fun for the team. They really loved that. Like some people will only buy paint that's the name of a food, like whipped cream or chocolate or something like that. It's funny what influences people. ROB: How did you come up with these names? Did you do research with consumers on their responses to these names? How did you get to the answer on that one? SUE: It was kind of a high-end line of paints that had different layers of pigments in them. The team would get together and – yeah, they didn't really research. They just knew what the goal of the name should be in terms of a style, in terms of what they needed to imbue. So, they would come up with a range of names, a couple of names for each color, and then the company would look at them and pick them. Since then, we've worked with other paint companies – some of the very prominent, and they don't like us to talk about it too much because they like us to just be quiet about it. And that's okay, because we do a lot of work with them. But it really is about the paint names; it's about how you talk about the paint, like you said, envisioning their new space or home and how it makes their home better. Paint is difficult for people to choose, so making it easy for people to select paints and pre-curating some for them is all really important. ROB: And I understand them wanting to take the center stage. That's what every client wants. That's what most people want. They want to be in the Story Brand metaphor. In the Hero's Journey, they want to be the hero and they want you to be the guide, that you help them be the hero. That's what we end up being there for when we're on the services side, I think, so it's hard to even market ourselves and show other potential clients how we can also be a good guide for them rather than using another client's story to be the hero. SUE: That's really true. It's funny; we really feel very successful at helping other brands illuminate what they are and what they do, and it has always been a struggle for us to do a good job of that about ourselves. I think we're a little humble, too. Midwest, you know. ROB: That's right. There is that Midwestern humility. Sue, when people want to find and connect with you and with Britton Marketing & Design Group, where should they go to track you down? SUE: They can go to our website, which is just bmdg.com, as in Britton Marketing & Design Group. They can send an informational email to us and we'll call them back. Or they can just email me as well, which is sue@bmdg.com. ROB: Excellent. Was it difficult getting a four-letter dot-com domain? SUE: We were surprised that it was not. That's why we snagged it. ROB: [laughs] Well, excellent. Sue, thank you so much for coming on, for sharing your journey. Congratulations on everything you have done, and we look forward to seeing so much more ahead. SUE: Thanks, Rob. Thanks for your time and for the conversation. I think we can all help each other by having these kinds of conversations. We all learn from everything we hear and read, right? ROB: So much, Sue. Thank you. Be well. SUE: Thank you so much. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

Hey High Fivers in addition to all the shows listed below I had one of my favorite promoters for one of my favorite promotions Simon of Frozen Tundra Wrestling on to talk aboat his upcoming show. You Can follow Simon and get tickets at the link below: http://www.FrozenTundraWrestling.com/ FTW 06/04 POWW 06/04 MKE 06/05 AWF 06/10 AAW 06/11 GLCW 06/12 Galli Lucha 06/12 ICW 06/17 BCW 06/18 JWA 06/18 Warrior 06/18 06/26 AEW 06/22 OFE 06/25 ACW 06/24 AEW?NJPW 0626

President Stephen Haines with Artisan Built Communities joins the Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio podcast to talk about The Great Home Rush, the company's popular Red Carpet campaign and upcoming 2022 projects. Haines joins host Carol Morgan on the All About Real Estate segment. An industry regular for over a quarter of a century, Haines spent most of his career working with national builders. He currently is president of Artisan Built Communities, a locally owned production builder on the westside of Atlanta. Artisan Built Communities. Artisan Built Communities presently builds in the award-winning Seven Hills NatureWalk and The Georgian. The builder offers three distinct product lines: a farm-influenced product that takes inspiration from rustic Midwestern homes, estate homes ideal for growing families of all shapes and sizes and finally, exclusive active adult ranch plans featuring incorporated covered patios situated in NatureWalk and The Georgian at Seven Hills. Seven Hills is a large master-planned community in Paulding County with incredible amenities, including a resort-style pool, theme-style water park as well as tennis, pickleball and basketball courts. The Artisan Built Communities section of the development, NatureWalk, will encompass half of the master-planned community when it reaches completion. Haines said, “It's just a wonderful community…and we still have a lot of lots left!” The builder is developing three phases and is getting ready to unveil its next active adult pod in June 2022 at Stratford at NatureWalk. Twenty-two additional homesites are coming to the estate section with a mix of basement and slab product offerings. With delivery expected in September 2022, Artisan Built Communities is also developing its next farm-inspired pod of homes! In May, Artisan Built Communities unveiled the decorated Braselton model which features soaring 15-foot ceilings, indoor and outdoor fireplaces, patios on both sides of the home and more. The attractive plan received an incredible reception and saw over 200 families visit in May to peruse the model home decorated by Haven Design Works. Haines said, “For those people that love to live outdoors, the outdoors is calling to you whether you go…to your large, covered patio with the outdoor fireplace or to the other side of your home by your kitchen to enjoy a cup of coffee.” As early as August 2022, the next pod of homes will release 32 homesites to continue the development of Heritage Pointe at The Georgian. Tune in to the full interview above for more information about Artisan Built Communities or visit www.DiscoverArtisan.com. Click here to learn more about the stunning Braselton model at Heritage Pointe at The Georgian. Never miss an episode of Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio! Subscribe to the podcast here. You can also get a recap of any past episode on the Radio page. Listen to the full interview above! Georgia Residential Mortgage Licensee, License #22564. NMLS ID #6606. Subject to borrower and property qualifications. Not all applicants will qualify. New American Funding and Artisan Built Communities are not associated. Click here to view the terms and conditions of products mentioned during the show. Corporate office 14511 Myford Rd., Suite 100, Tustin, CA 92780. Phone: (800) 450-2010. (June/2022) New American Funding is a family-owned mortgage lender with a servicing portfolio of over 216,000+ loans for $56.8 billion, 171 branches and about 4,500+ employees. The company offers several niche loan products and has made Inc. 5000's list of Fastest-Growing Companies in America seven times. For more information, call 678-898-3540 or visit https://branch.newamericanfunding.com/Atlanta. The Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio “All About Real Estate” segment, presented by Denim Marketing, highlights the movers and shakers in the Atlanta real estate industry – the home builders, developers,

Alright here's the thing, we said "try…. we'd try to get back in the studio." And we fudged up but we did put together another fan favorite Midwestern Rewind. This one is comprised of the best of the Christmas episode, Ep. 30 - Murder on the Polar Express and Ep. 31 - Here Comes Maple Man, enjoy!

David has loved using strategic insights to drive organizations forward for as long as he can remember. Across his background as a 4x entrepreneur, board member of for and not-for profit organizations, and an author, his focus is on helping to clearly distill the questions organizations face and then formulate an appropriate response. David began consulting after founding his first company in high school helping businesses with technology. Since then, he has helped build organizations of all types including: Large, multi-national financial services firms Private equity funds Regional wealth management firms Education focused non-profits In 2019, he founded Family Capital Strategy to work with family members and executives of family offices / family-owned companies to help them think strategically about wealth and build world-class family wealth management organizations. Prior to founding the firm, David was a partner at a large asset management firm in Nashville after spending many years as a fundamental investor and analyst. David has and continues to serve in a broad range of governance roles. David is the Chairman of the Board and Chairman of the Investment Committee for the private trust company of a 75 member Midwestern family. As well, he currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Nashville Classical Charter School, one of the top-performing schools in the state of Tennessee. He is also on the Board of 21/64, a national practice advising family philanthropies. An Eagle Scout, David is a graduate of Wake Forest University, magna cum laude, Beta Gamma Sigma. He has completed executive education course work on Family Business Governance at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Additionally, he is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder. He is also a 21/64 Certified Advisor for those who work in an advisory role with multi-generational families. He was recognized in 2017 as one of Nashville's Forty under Forty and in 2019 as a recipient of a Nashville Emerging Leader Award – Financial Services Industry. In 2020, he was recognized by the Nashville Post as part of their All Star Board. Connect w/ David: TW: @davidcwellsjr LI: linkedin.com/in/davidcwellsjr https://familycapitalstrategy.com/ Connect w/ Jovica: LI: linkedin.com/jdjurdjevic TW: @TheJovPost IG: @asap_jovi Music Credit: Title: Clean Break Artist: Density & Time

This week we are joined by comedian Meg Stalter! With season two of Hacks, we talk about her role as Kayla the assistant (5:50), a formative experience in a middle school drama class (12:50), moving from Ohio to Chicago to perform (17:54), and how she pushed boundaries on stage (19:47) with the support of her comedy community (22:34). We also unpack the strange sensation of going viral (25:19) before reenacting a trademark Meg Stalter bit (27:14).  On the back half, we discuss her beloved quarantine sets on Instagram Live (34:52), the specificity of her Midwestern characters (41:16), and how her curiosity in people is at the core of her work (42:52). To close, Meg reflects on her blessed journey (48:54) and where she hopes to go in the years ahead (49:52). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of The Idealists. (formerly Grit & Grace), host and entrepreneur Melissa Kiguwa interviews Sonya Erickson who is a lawyer, partner, and member of the board of directors at Cooley Law Firm. The recognition for Sonya's work is vast. She has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America Venture Capital Law category since 2004 and is listed as a leading attorney in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business since 2013. In this episode Sonya shares why she believes more women at the table means better resources for women as a whole. . . . . . In the episode: - Sonya begins the episode by describing how her Midwestern values informed a fear of talking about money. - She then describes how she began investing (including in Yahoo) and mapping her own financial destiny outside of her cultural values. - Sonya shares where she sees women dropping out of their careers before reaping financial upsides and how she is trying to mitigate this. - At the end of the episode, Sonya shares her audacious vision for the world. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/theidealists/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theidealists/support

HMM returns! With the only 80s all-female rock band to sell over a million copies of their albums, Vixen! Learn about Vixen's Midwestern roots, listen to some tasty solos, and take a deep-dive into the First Ladies of Hair Metal!

Thank you Susan Combs for being so open and honest and sharing your personal story of grief, I know it will help many through theirsMeet SusanSusan L. Combs is President of Combs & Company, a full-service insurance brokerage firm based in New York City. Susan started the company at twenty-six years old with a drive to “Do more, better.” This internal mantra has resulted in numerous successes and firsts, like being named the youngest National President in the over eighty-five-year history of Women in Insurance & Financial Services (WIFS) and the first female Broker of the Year winner for BenefitsPro.Susan is “a Missouri girl in a New York world,” and it's the lessons she learned during her Midwestern upbringing and two-plus decades in New York City that is the basis of this book. The insights contained in these pages come from family, friends, colleagues, and life in general. But the most important teachings are from her late father. It was his steady guidance in life that set Susan's foundation and it was his passing that inspired her new movement, Pancakes for Roger.When Susan's not running her business or trying to help others through their own challenges, you can find her flipping tires at her beloved CrossFit gym, supporting the Missouri Tigers, KC Chiefs, and Royals, or slaying the dragons that have come her way.What is Pancakes for Roger?In a world that can feel shaky and uncertain at times, one fact holds true: nobody gets anywhere alone. Susan L. Combs has learned that lesson many times over, and she's held onto the advice that has guided her on her journey—one that's taken her from a tiny town in Missouri to the hustle of New York City. She's faced immense grief and fostered immense growth, personally and professionally. Through it all, she leaned on guidance from mentors in her life. One of those key mentors was her father, Roger. He wore many hats: as a judge, a veteran and Two-Star Major General, a leader in his community, a loving husband . . . and, as we learn in this book, one hell of a dad. Though he passed away in 2018, his legacy lives on in Pancakes for Roger and beyond, as a portion of the proceeds from this book benefits the University of Missouri School of Law Veterans Clinic in his honor.In Pancakes for Roger—a series of quick, straightforward snapshots delivered with no fluff and a whole lot of heart—Susan offers lessons from Roger and others so that you can lean on them, too, as you set out to slay your own dragons.Learn Morehttps://www.pancakesforroger.com/Learn more about your host, Nelia at https://neliahutt.comJoin the Free 5 Day Discover Your Passion Challenge athttps://neliahutt.com/https://www.travellivegive.com. Helping you Discover Inner Peace through Giving!Email your comments, show ideas or connect at hello@neliahutt.comSubscribe to the Podcast YouTube Channel to  watch the videos of the episodes

This week on the Midwest Wrasslin Roundup I am pleased and honored to have Battle Tested Ben on to talk aboat his first show going on Sunday May 29th. Promotions first shows are always special but in this case even more so. So tuned as Ben comes to tells about the card and how it came to be. Follow Ben and his journey on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blazingbenjamin Follow BattleGround Pro Wrestling https://www.facebook.com/Battle-Ground-Pro-Wrestling-101041819270170 Also this week: 4th Wall 05/27 JWA 05/28 Warrior Wrestling 05/28 Battleground Pro 05/29 Stay tuned for action in June for AAW (trent is coming back on) Frozen Tundra (Simon is coming back on) MKE (hoping to have Silas on) ICW Milwaukee (Jerry will be back) Warrior Wrestling, Brew City Wrestling Huge AEW/NJPW show