Podcasts about san luis obispo

Send Mo a text about this episode!I believe the Universe brings different people into my life at very specific times- and Juliana Fajardo came into my world at such a time. I met her in March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. We were gathering in an online space called "Stronger Together" and I was immediately drawn to her energy and her curiosity. We met in person in July of 2020- at the same time I first met my now partner, Tom Harrison. We have stayed in touch ever since and cultivated a lovely friendship. I really believe Juliana has a presence, voice and energy that needs to be heard by many. I believe she's a change agent- and I want more people to know her and learn from her. The way she talks about intuition and energy is approachable, clear and coming from a place of curiosity which is KEY.In this episode we talk about:-How Juliana defines intuition -How she receives signs or synchronicities and follows that guidance-What she has done in the past when she's been in a "void" or a space where she didn't know what was going to happen next-How her intuition has helped her build more self confidence and self loveThe 411 on Juliana:Juliana Fajardo is a creative, an empath, and a practicing intuitive. She is the Senior Development Manager for Friendship Bridge, a nonprofit social enterprise creating opportunities that empower women in Guatemala to build a better life, through microfinance, education, and preventive health services. She has been in the nonprofit sector for over a decade and enjoys being a connector and a collaborator in this space. In her work as a nonprofit professional and as an artist and creator, she currently feels guided by curiosity and being in an exploratory phase. Unapologetically passionate about strawberries and easily amused, she finds joy in the simple things and loves expressing that. She is excited to be exploring her intuitions and to see where this takes her in her life and career.She holds a Master of Public Administration with a dual concentration in Nonprofit Organizations and Environmental Policy, Management, and Law from the University of Colorado Denver and a B.S. in Statistics with minors in Environmental Studies and Dance from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.Do you have follow up questions? Things you want to know more about? Please send them to: Mo@iloveitwhen.org----------Follow I love it when

In California, music and winemaking seem to go together. Visit any of the state's countless wineries and you can hear all kinds of music, from jazz and folk, to classical and Americana. But one artist on the Central Coast takes that connection especially seriously: he spent years making an album full of sounds from a vineyard. Reporter Benjamin Purper takes us to San Luis Obispo to learn more about a sonic journey through a Central Coast wine harvest. And we'll meet one of California's most celebrated cheese-makers, Soyoung Scanlan. But years ago, before she'd ever really eaten cheese, Soyoung had another love. Growing up in South Korea, she trained in classical piano. So every cheese she's made over the last 25 years has a musical name and connection. For her series California Foodways, Lisa Morehouse visited the cheesemaker in the hills outside Petaluma. We end today with the story of Ron Peterson, a volunteer guide at the Tijuana River Estuary. After losing his sight, Ron now leads a very unique kind of tour. His story comes to us from KPBS in San Diego, as part of their series about volunteers, people who devote their time in unexpected ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hometown Radio 06/19/25 4p: Donna King, head of San Luis Obispo parking services

In this episode of the AgCulture Podcast, Steve Sweet brings his decades of experience in dairy management and agribusiness to explore the evolving relationship between dealers, manufacturers, and dairy farmers. He shares practical insights on navigating automation, tech integration, and staffing challenges across dealer networks. Learn how changing farm sizes, technology demands, and market expectations are reshaping agribusiness strategy. Listen now on all major platforms!Meet the guest: Steve Sweet holds a B.S. in Dairy Science from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and a Dairy Management degree from Michigan State University. With over 20 years of industry experience, his work spans dairy nutrition, farm management, and robotic milking systems across North America.What you will learn: (00:00) Introduction(04:04) Dealer network evolution(05:10) Data in dairy tech(06:27) Staffing and education shifts(08:21) Manufacturer-dealer tensions(12:57) Global market contrasts(32:01) Closing thoughtsDiscover the world of agriculture with the "Ag Culture Podcast".  This podcast will be a gateway for those passionate about agriculture to explore its global perspectives and innovative practices.Join Paul as he shares his experiences in the agricultural industry, his travels and encounters with important figures around the world.Available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Subscribe at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.agculturepodcast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and keep an eye out for future episodes, bringing insights and stories from the vibrant world of agriculture.

National security concerns have been the invisible hand guiding governance throughout recorded history. In the 20th century, it was defined by a country versus country dynamic: whichever nation was the strongest and most strategic was also the safest. But today, our biggest national security threats don't come from opposing nations – they are “actorless threats” that emerge from the breakdown of the complex systems we all depend on – from the stability of our planetary systems to our intricately complex and fragile global supply chains. In this unprecedented landscape, what is required of us in order to keep our citizens safe?  In this episode, Nate is joined by Rod Schoonover, an expert at the intersection of Earth systems stress and national security, where they discuss the need for the evolution of national defense to address the systemic (and diffuse) threats of the 21st century. Rod emphasizes the need for a reformed security sector that addresses contemporary challenges, like global heating that leads to extreme climatic events, urging immediate action to mitigate risks and enhance stability. Importantly, they also delve into the need for political leadership to embrace complexity and local resilience when tackling these pressing issues. How do we unite against ‘actorless' threats, even when we don't have someone to blame for their damages? Where have leadership and governance already begun to adapt to address these existential concerns, and where are we seeing failures? Finally, how could incorporating more cooperative principles at every level of society transform our ability to bend – not break – under the weight of our human predicament?  (Conversation recorded on May 6th, 2025)   About Rod Schoonover: Rod Schoonover is the CEO and Founder of the Ecological Futures Group, Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, Senior Associate Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), and Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  Rod served a decade in the U.S. intelligence community as the Director of Environment and Natural Resources at the National Intelligence Council in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and as Senior Scientist and Senior Analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Before joining the government as a AAAS Diplomacy Fellow in 2009, Rod was a tenured Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Dr. Schoonover earned his PhD in theoretical chemical physics at the University of Michigan, where he studied complex systems.   Show Notes and More Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   --- Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future Join our Substack newsletter Join our Discord channel and connect with other listeners

In this episode Garth interviews Laura Freberg from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in San Luis Obispo, CA. Laura discusses her approach to teaching psychology through big ideas and real-world problems, recounting her journey from a major in political science to becoming a professor of psychology. Laura shares her innovative methods for integrating AI into the classroom, highlighting the importance of humanizing technology in education. Additionally, she shares memorable stories, including an unnerving experience with a dubious transportation service and a fascinating encounter with an AI guardrails engineer. This episode offers a blend of practical teaching advice, personal anecdotes, and forward-thinking perspectives on the role of AI in education. [Note. Portions of the show notes were generated by Descript AI.]

It's time for Team Sweasey to break down critical market statistics shaping the San Luis Obispo housing landscape. The team explores a striking trend: the average first-time homebuyer is now 38 years old, a decade older than the 28-year-old average in 1991, and that age is likely to go up with the shift in home sellers, with the average age jumping from 47 in 2005 to 63 today. Owners see the benefit of staying put with locked in low interest rates and property tax savings. With inventory tight and no significant new construction on the horizon, Team Sweasey discusses how these dynamics fuel rising prices and limited options, making it harder for buyers to enter the market. In this episode they share creative solutions, like house hacking in Paso Robles or even recycling, to get your seed money. Packed with actionable insights, the episode underscores the urgency of starting early, leveraging expert guidance with an agent, and rethinking inheritance to build wealth through real estate. It's time for Team Sweasey to take a data-driven look at why now, is the time to act in SLO County's competitive market! Like, subscribe, and send your questions for Team Sweasey to tackle in future episodes. Text them in at 805-244-1170, Be Sure to Subscribe to Team Sweasey on YouTube @halsweasey for quick tips and full episodes of the SLO County Real Estate Podcast with Hal Sweasey. California DRE #01111911

Hometown Radio 06/17/25 3p: Capt. Chad Wright introduces us to STARBASE San Luis Obispo

Our guest on the Holding the Ladder in Sport and Leadership podcast is Samba Johnson, the Associate Head Coach for the women's basketball program at National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA. Since joining the staff in 2022, he has played a key role in revitalizing the team, tripling their win total in his first season and guiding them to a 17-14 record and Women's National Invitational Tournament (WNIT) berth in his second season. Under his leadership, several Mustangs have earned All-Big West honors, including Natalia Ackerman, who was named First Team All-Big West and to the All-Defensive and All-Academic teams.A Pittsburgh, PA native and former standout at NCAA Division II Chaminade University, Johnson has coached at nearly every level, including National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), NCAA Division I, II, III, National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), and high school, across both men's and women's programs. His résumé includes stints at Lynchburg College, Longwood University, Friends University, Casper Community College, McCook Community College, University of Charleston, Cleveland State University, Ohio University, Stetson University, and Duquesne University, as well as head coaching roles at Penn State-New Kensington, La Roche College, and East Hill Christian Academy. Known for his mentorship, energy, and character, Johnson is praised by Cal Poly head coach Shanele Stires as a servant-leader who deeply impacts student-athletes both on and off the court.You can learn more about Johnson here:https://gopoly.com/staff-directory/samba-johnson/397

For his segment Bookwaves, KCBX's Brian Reynolds speaks with award-winning author and activist Lucy Jane Bledsoe about how attitudes towards the LGBTQ community have or have not changed and about one novel in particular titled “Tell the Rest.” Bledsoe will be speaking on Saturday, June 14th at the Atascadero Library from 12-2pm and San Luis Obispo library from 4-5 pm. Then, Wine Country with Mira Honeycutt who is a Central Coast author and wine journalist. She's also the co-author of the recently published book, "Sideways Uncorked: The Perfect Pairing of Film & Wine." Mira speaks with winemaker Dave McGee, owner of Monochrome Wines and founder of the festival White Wine Invitational that is happening on Friday, June 20th from 4-7 pm in Paso Robles. Dave talks to Mira about the motivation behind the invitational and the world of white wines. This is followed by Meher Ali's interview with Grant Helete, Program Coordinator at the Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo or ECOSLO about their annual fundraiser and programs in SLO county from cleanup to nature awareness to tree planting. Their annual fundraiser is happening this Saturday on June 14th at The Octagon Barn from 4-8pm and tickets are on sale at ecoslo.com. Last is a story by Katie Brown, a reporter at KAZU 90.3, and her story has been sourced from The California Report, where she reports on food insecurity facing Central coast farmworkers and how it is being exacerbated because of raids by the U.S. Immigration Customs…

Chris Burkard (@ChrisBurkard) is an acclaimed American photographer, filmmaker, and storyteller known for his breathtaking landscape photography. Born in San Luis Obispo, California, Burkard rose to prominence through his striking surf photography in remote and often icy locations like Iceland, Norway, and Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. His work captures the raw beauty of nature, often blending elements of human exploration and environmental grandeur. Burkard's style is marked by expansive compositions, ethereal light, and a reverence for the wild. Beyond photography, he is also a sought-after speaker, author of several books, and director of award-winning documentaries, including Under an Arctic Sky. A passionate advocate for environmental preservation and outdoor adventure, Burkard uses his platform to inspire others to seek meaningful connections with the natural world. His work has been featured by National Geographic, The New Yorker, Apple, and Patagonia, among others. Whether hanging from a cliff face or paddling through freezing surf, Burkard's lens invites viewers to embrace discomfort, awe, and the power of the untamed.If you dig this podcast, will you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts? It takes less than 60 seconds and makes a difference when I drop to my knees and beg hard-to-get guests on the show. I read them all. You can watch this podcast on my YouTube channel and join my newsletter on Substack. It's glorious. Get full access to Kyle Thiermann at thiermann.substack.com/subscribe

Chris Burkard (@ChrisBurkard) is an acclaimed American photographer, filmmaker, and storyteller known for his breathtaking landscape photography. Born in San Luis Obispo, California, Burkard rose to prominence through his striking surf photography in remote and often icy locations like Iceland, Norway, and Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. His work captures the raw beauty of nature, often blending elements of human exploration and environmental grandeur. Burkard's style is marked by expansive compositions, ethereal light, and a reverence for the wild. Beyond photography, he is also a sought-after speaker, author of several books, and director of award-winning documentaries, including Under an Arctic Sky. A passionate advocate for environmental preservation and outdoor adventure, Burkard uses his platform to inspire others to seek meaningful connections with the natural world. His work has been featured by National Geographic, The New Yorker, Apple, and Patagonia, among others. Whether hanging from a cliff face or paddling through freezing surf, Burkard's lens invites viewers to embrace discomfort, awe, and the power of the untamed.If you dig this podcast, will you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts? It takes less than 60 seconds and makes a difference when I drop to my knees and beg hard-to-get guests on the show. I read them all. You can watch this podcast on my YouTube channel and join my newsletter on Substack. It's glorious. Get full access to Kyle Thiermann at thiermann.substack.com/subscribe

  Episode title: SLO to San Diego by Train, GF Diets, and a Confidence Challenge Hi there. I'm Dr. Mary Travelbest, a world traveler who has traveled solo for over 50 years. I'm coming to you after a recent trip to Asia. I visited Taiwan and South Korea for 10 days. I'm here to share my best travel ideas and work on solo travel. I'm about to launch on a 90-day trip around the world solo again. The aim is world peace through cultural exchange. I'm about to travel the world for 90 days.   Listener Story Spotlight I want to tell you about a listener who recently retired as a dental hygienist. Her name is Cathy A. She's been a big supporter of this podcast. She is traveling to Wisconsin to see her family and attend reunions. She's enjoying her retirement by playing Marjan and. She recently sold her house and moved back into a condo she had bought decades before marriage. Her contractor husband fixed it up to her specs before they moved in, and she's so happy. She'll be traveling a lot more soon.    Quick fire FAQ: The FAQ for today is: How can I find the right foods when I travel? I am gluten-free, and I have a hard time finding the right foods.   First, you can use trusten gluten-free apps, but don't trust them completely. Find me gluten-free options. The GF scanner, Yuka, and Happy Cow are three to check out. Find Me Gluten Free is a restaurant review site for gluten-free diners, primarily focused on the US, but with some unreliable data. The second is a scanner for reading labels with gluten information. The third is mostly for vegans and vegetarians, but it also filters for gluten-free.   Here are some more tips for GF travel. Learn Local Phrases, For example, Celiac Travel. Bring Printed translation cards Book accommodations with kitchens or fridges. Shop local Be wary of street food, buffets, and Gluten-friendly menus. These are not medically safe. Bring a stash of protein bars, GF crackers, or instant oats. Use Facebook or Reddit Gluten-Free Travel Groups. Check Airline and airport dining in advance. Red Flag countries' Awareness or Labeling Laws. 60-second confidence challenge   3 things: neighborhood selection, daylight itineraries, scam avoidance Select walkable neighborhoods with public transportation nearby if you don't drive. Read reviews on the AirBNB website before you select. When booking a flight or train, be sure it arrives during daylight hours, which can vary in winter months. If it comes after dark, it will be more challenging.  To avoid scams, be cautious when choosing passwords, logging out of websites, and making online purchases. These are very typical scams. If you are suspicious, you may be right to avoid that vendor and choose another. Don't look like a target, either. If you like today's Confidence Challenge, Chapter 2 of my book dives deeper— https://www.5stepstosolotravel.com     See Book A on Amazon or my website for information on all of these items.   Destination Deep‑Dive Today's destination is:  “Amtrak Coastal Sampler: San Luis Obispo to San Diego”   Do you love train travel? Have you considered Amtrak? I took one of the very best train trips on July 4. I started in San Luis Obispo, known as SLO to the locals. I was the only passenger in first class who picked me up at 5 pm. The porter greeted me happily and brought me snacks and drinks. The entire night was like a dream. I could see fireworks in hundreds of cities along the path to San Diego. I did transfer trains in Los Angeles, but even then, I could see a lot of fireworks. This was a treat. I was the only one in the car until we got close to San Diego, about a 5-hour trip.    What is there to do in SLO? The beauty of the area will take your breath away. Your taste buds will be treated to incredible tastes from many choices. Your thirst will be quenched with fresh wine and beers from the local wineries and breweries.  The weather is almost always great here, too.    Slip-ups and smart moves   One thing I messed up was not downloading the e-ticket before I reached the poor Wi-Fi zones on the train. But the fix is easy. Just download and take a screenshot of the ticket when you're preparing for the trip and have a good Wi-Fi connection.   Practice: Test out your local commuter train and take a ride this weekend.    60-second confidence challenge   Have you been on a train lately?   Practice: Test your local commuter train and ride this weekend.  Buy the ticket on your phone, then validate it before boarding the train. If your train requires a ticket screenshot, take that before you board.    Resources Roundup:   If you're looking for more female solo resources, you can find several tips and ways to navigate the pitfalls. Check out the 5 Steps to Solo Travel, Part A, the audiobook, or Part B. They are available in eBook and paperback formats on Amazon. The ebook is also available on my website.   Take away mantra.   You can travel solo and never be alone. Dr. Travelbest.   Thanks for listening! Please send me your travel stories or questions. Listen for the next episode next week and the 320 plus episodes waiting for you to get going.  

Erosion ~ Amber Waves (15 April 2003 - San Luis Obispo, CA)

Hometown Radio 05/28/25 4p: San Luis Obispo finally gets a dog park

Dane Carter: Addiction's Grip and Lack of Hope  | The Hopeaholics PodcastIn this powerful episode of The Hopeaholics Podcast, guest Dane Carter delivers an unflinching account of his transformation from a life consumed by addiction and a 13-year cycle of incarceration to one of sobriety, purpose, and impact. Beginning at age 13 with juvenile detention for fighting and drug use, Dane's path spiraled through prison terms, culminating in a desperate struggle with fentanyl and meth, marked by a high-speed chase and weeks holed up in a San Luis Obispo motel room. A life-changing anonymous call from a Corona, California, detox center offered him a scholarship for treatment, sparking a four-year sober journey that includes building a fitness and mindset coaching business and finding love with his fiancée, met during rehab. From surviving a motorcycle crash just 12 days into detox to narrowly avoiding a life sentence after a violent New Year's Eve incident, Dane's story is a testament to resilience and divine intervention. Emphasizing that “your past does not define you—your next move does,” he shares how rejecting a victim mindset and embracing activities like gym workouts fueled his recovery. Now dedicated to helping others through his platform, Dane's raw honesty and actionable insights make this episode a compelling beacon of hope for anyone navigating addiction or seeking redemption.#TheHopeaholics #redemption #recovery #AlcoholAddiction #AddictionRecovery #wedorecover  #SobrietyJourney #MyStory #RecoveryIsPossible #Hope #wedorecover Join our patreon to get access to an EXTRA EPISODE every week of ‘Off the Record', exclusive content, a thriving recovery community, and opportunities to be featured on the podcast. https://patreon.com/TheHopeaholics Follow the Hopeaholics on our Socials:https://www.instagram.com/thehopeaholics https://linktr.ee/thehopeaholicsBuy Merch: https://thehopeaholics.myshopify.comVisit our Treatment Centers: https://www.hopebythesea.comIf you or a loved one needs help, please call or text 949-615-8588. We have the resources to treat mental health and addiction. Sponsored by the Infiniti Group LLC:https://www.infinitigroupllc.com Timestamps:00:02:20 - Rock Bottom in a Motel Room00:03:00 - Anonymous Call That Changed Everything00:04:04 - Wake-Up Call at Mom's House00:05:14 - Early Incarceration and Juvenile Struggles00:08:25 - Realizing He Was the Problem00:09:27 - Persistence in Finding a Sponsor00:10:12 - Motorcycle Crash During Detox00:11:08 - Building a New Life with Martina00:15:00 - Spiritual Connection Through the Call00:18:36 - Getting a Face Tattoo During Hard Times00:43:22 - Rejecting the Victim Mindset00:46:19 - Capturing the Sobriety Rush00:51:10 - Escaping a Life Sentence01:06:08 - Past Doesn't Define You

Sara Vaskov has been in the San Luis Obispo retail scene for over two decades. She began working at Hands Gallery 22 years ago and became the owner in 2016, leading the shop through years of growth and evolution. Beyond running a thriving small business, Sara is deeply involved in community advocacy. As a board member of the Downtown SLO Association, she played a key role in lowering parking costs through her work on the Parking and Access Committee. Sara has also been an active participant in the Economic Development Committee with the Chamber of Commerce. Balancing these responsibilities with full-time business ownership has been both challenging and rewarding, allowing her to help shape the future of her local downtown while continuing to curate a unique shopping experience for her customers.Bailey Weaver is the store manager and creative director of Hands Gallery. Now in her ninth year at the shop and second year as manager, she has helped Hands Gallery earn the title of Best Gift Shop in SLO County for two years in a running now, as voted by New Times readers. She has also expanded the store's digital reach, growing its Instagram following to over 4,000 and strengthening its online presence. Bailey oversees merchandising, marketing campaigns, and store displays, ensuring everything reflects the brand's aesthetic. She also attends trade shows to source new and exciting products. This past year, she collaborated with fellow business owners to successfully advocate for lower parking costs in downtown SLO, reinforcing her commitment to both retail and community engagement. Bailey discovered The Retail Whore Podcast in her first year as manager, finding inspiration and guidance as she navigated her new role, making this opportunity to be a guest feel truly full circle.Here, Sara and Bailey share how they went from working in the restaurant industry to becoming a superstar mother-daughter retail team. They dive into how they took over Hands Gallery and transformed it into an award-winning store. Sara and Bailey also share how they split responsibilities, how they tackled SLO's parking challenges, how they approach merchandising, and how they maintain a work-life balance.We are doing our first-ever open call! You can submit your store or favorite store to be on the podcast because every store has a story behind it! Go to theretailwhorepodcast.com, click on SUBMIT YOUR STORE, fill out an easy form and we'll see you on the mic! What's Inside: How Sara and Bailey turned Hands Gallery into an award-winning retail storeHow the mother-daughter team splits store responsibilitiesSara and Bailey's approach to merchandising  Mentioned In This Episode:Hands Gallery on InstagramHandsgallery.com

Meet your vineyard night-shift rodent patrol —barn owls. Bob Peak, a dedicated volunteer at Pacific Wildlife Care, shares how these incredible predators consume up to 30 gophers or voles a night. Learn fun facts about their short lifecycle, nesting habits, and how to properly install nest boxes (hint: ventilation and road direction matter!). Discover how you can encourage barn owls to thrive on your land—plus, hear how these owls even foster orphaned chicks. Resources:         REGISTER: 6/6/25 Tailgate | Bird Abatement and Managing Wildlife in the Vineyard 58: Barn Owls 84: Falconry Bird Abatement 118: Managing Rodent Pests in Vineyards with Integrated Pest Management Build Your Own Owl Box Cornell Lab All About Birds National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association Pacific Wildlife Care The Barn Owl Box Company The Barn Owl Trust (UK) UC Davis Raptor Center Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.   Transcript [00:00:04] Beth Vukmanic: Meet your vineyard, night shift Rodent patrol - barn owls. Welcome to Sustainable Wine Growing with Vineyard Team, where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic, executive director [00:00:18] In today's podcast, Craig Macmillan critical resource manager at Niner Wine Estates with longtime SIP Certified Vineyard in the first ever SIP Certified winery. Speaks with Bob Peak, a dedicated volunteer at Pacific Wildlife Care. [00:00:34] Bob shares how these incredible predators consume up to 30 gophers or voles a night. Learn fun facts about their short lifecycle nesting habitats, and how to properly install nest boxes, hint, ventilation, and road direction matter. [00:00:50] Discover how you could encourage barn owls to thrive on your land plus. Here how these owls even foster orphaned chicks. [00:00:58] If you love this topic and want to learn even more about barn owls, you won't want to miss the June 6th, 2025 tailgate on bird abatement and managing wildlife in the vineyard. [00:01:09] Hosted at Jackson Family Wines Bar M Vineyard in Los Alamos, California. We'll see a live falconry demonstration and learn the latest barn owl research from California Polytechnic State University, including how changes in vineyard habitat affect foraging behavior. To register, just go to vineyard team.org/events or look for the link in the show notes. [00:01:33] Now, let's listen in. [00:01:38] Craig Macmillan: Our guest today is Bob Peak. He is a volunteer with Pacific Wildlife care in SLO County, California. And today we're gonna talk about barn owls. Thanks for being on the podcast, Bob. [00:01:48] Bob Peak: Thank you very much Craig, and I want to thank you and the Niner Wine Estates for this invitation. I think that this going to be very informative and quite fascinating actually. [00:02:00] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, so I'll give you a little bit of background on that. I met Bob, when he came out to Niner Wine estates, looking for clutches, looking for looking for outlets, and we learned all kinds of fascinating things. And I was like, I have got to talk to this guy on the podcast 'cause there's so much information and interesting things about barn owls that I didn't know, until a couple months ago. [00:02:23] But why don't we start with you telling us a little bit about, pacific wildlife Care. [00:02:28] Bob Peak: Yes. Pacific Wildlife Care was started 41 years ago here in the county by home rehabbers. There was no facility. People did their work in their specialty right out of their home, whether it was raccoons or opossums. We people tended to have a different skill that they were good at, and it started with very humble beginnings. [00:02:51] We finally reached a point where we could afford a facility and we went and occupied part of the PG&E power plant there in Morrow Bay. We are right next door to the Marine Mammal Center, if anyone knows where that is, and we are right now in the process of having to move as they are, also as there are plans coming up for the property. [00:03:17] We currently have had some donors step up and provide us with not only the 10 acres of land on Buckley Road in San Luis Obispo, but we are also very quickly in the process of building a brand new facility out there. [00:03:35] Craig Macmillan: That is really great. There's definitely a need for this. How did you personally become involved in wildlife rehabilitation? [00:03:43] Bob Peak: I needed something to do after I retired and I literally, I saw an ad in the Tribune, a local paper that said that they were looking for volunteers and I had had some experience with the birds of prey as a a child. I have a Native American background and they're a very important part of our culture. [00:04:04] we, we learned about them early on and the opportunity to work around people that were like-minded as far as with the animals in San Luis Bipo County was rather exciting. [00:04:18] Craig Macmillan: And so let's move on. Talk about barn owls specifically. Why is it important to encourage and protect barn owls? [00:04:24] Bob Peak: Ooh, that's a good question. barn owls are a species that really keep things in check. They're the balance to something that could get outta control very quickly. and I think we all see that, whether it's at our houses or at the wineries. And that's these, the rodents and other pests. That not only are harmful to us but they're harmful to our crops and even potential danger to us as well. [00:04:56] They are voracious eaters. They consume anywhere between six to eight voles or gophers a night. And that's each when a parent is feeding the young. That number can go up by times four. You could see that you might be 30 vols taken a night. So they do a tremendous job for the environment. And again, they, they're more of a checks and balances. [00:05:29] I think too that the more barn owls that you have in an area it means that you're basically protected. It's one of those things too where people also think the same way with the, the skunks or opossums and raccoons. They can be nuisances at times, but they serve a very good purpose in eliminating all kinds of pests, insects, and things that you don't want. [00:05:56] Craig Macmillan: What is the lifecycle of a barn owl? [00:06:00] Bob Peak: . I wrote a couple of notes down on this. The lifecycle is rather short for barn owl. The, they're cavity nesters, what happens is the, the barn owl parents make for life, they're monogamous. So they'll stick around they'll find a cavity barn or something that a box where they'll head in and lay anywhere between one and eight eggs. The incubation period is rather quick. [00:06:38] The breeding season is basically between late January and February for about six to eight weeks. , about a week and a half before the female laser eggs, she's nest bound. She's too heavy to fly. She can't even get out of the box. [00:06:53] Another thing that she does at that same time is she picks a little brood patch. On her belly to where she can remove those feathers. And once the young born, 'cause they have no feathers, she will put them right next to that skin of hers for the warmth that they're gonna need. [00:07:15] Incubation is 29 to about 34 days. Again, they could lay between one and eight eggs. And they can do that three times a year. They might just have one clutch of eight. They could have two or maybe even three if the conditions are right. [00:07:33] She'll turn these eggs every so many minutes and then it takes, oh, I would say, you know, like 29 to 34 days, [00:07:44] and then the chick to get out from the shell. The have this little hook on the end of their bill. It's an egg tooth that's on the end of their, bill. And then that will actually break the egg open and it does take a while for, it takes 12 to 36 hours for 'em to get out of that eggshell. Four to seven. [00:08:08] It'll be about four months before they'll see another. But brood, because once they leave, then they'll lay more eggs. [00:08:17] The four months will pass from the egg being laid to the young, gaining independence. That's it. And they pretty much don't receive much training from their parents. It's, they get out of the box and then they're on their own. Where a great horned owl will spend up to a year or more, even longer with their parents. [00:08:37] Craig Macmillan: Hmm. [00:08:39] Bob Peak: A freshly hatched barnells Pink mentioned that know they hatch in sequence of the way that they were laid. [00:08:46] Craig Macmillan: Oh. [00:08:46] Bob Peak: The oldest could be three weeks old when the youngest hatches. So there is a. A challenge for food with that young one because that big one's gonna be going after it. So that's right off the bat. You know, you got some you know, some things working against you. [00:09:03] The downey Plumage starts to show up about three weeks later. They tend to clutch together and for that warmth till then. And then the female again, is taking the food brought by the male. The male is doing all the hunting. And the male will bring it in. The female will grab that food and rip it apart and feed it individually to each of the babies. Very small pieces [00:09:31] about the time they're two weeks old, they can stand on their own and they can actually eat whole prey. And now that's something to see on itself, to watch these little critters take a vole or a small mouse and swallow that you think they're gonna choke. It's quite. For a parent, you know, you're worried, you know [00:09:53] once the, the youngest chick can feed itself, then mom will leave the nest for hunting too. No longer needed to rip food. And then it takes both parents to feed those animals. And because each of the young ones are gonna need three or more mice themselves. On top of mom and dad eating each needing 8, 6, 7, or eight themselves. [00:10:23] Average time to fledge is about nine weeks. Fledgling means they basically are fully feathered and ready to take off to see the world. They can test their wings sometimes, but to do so a lot of times there's no perch. There's just basically the entry and exit hole. That's why we find 'em so many times on the ground. They're curious. They get close to that or sometimes they can get pushed out again. Most of the time when we receive them, it's because they've fallen out of a nest. [00:10:58] , if they are on the ground, they're pretty much doomed because. There's raccoons in your area, Craig. You've got Bobcat, you've got mountain lions, coyotes. We're trying to get them back into that box as soon as we can. [00:11:13] Fledglings will continue to be fed by the parents for about three months, maybe even a little longer. By. Oh, I would say November. The fledglings will have dispersed if they were laid in the summer and they found a territory settled into a new Nest site. But life is hard for the new ones. It's true of owls and it's true of the raptors, hawks, eagles and things. The survival rate is low. The survival rates can average 37 to 65%. [00:11:54] Craig Macmillan: Hmm. [00:11:54] Bob Peak: But the odds improve greatly. If they make it past their first year, they gotta get the skills down. Many young barnells starve to death. Typically, they'll live only another three or four, three years through typical lifespan. [00:12:09] Craig Macmillan: Hmm. [00:12:10] Bob Peak: The barn owls do not typically hunt close to their nest box. They like to leave, they like to go to open fields where they can fly low. Listening for rodents. A lot of times, again, we think of them as using their sight, but they have incredible hearing as well. Just look at those ears on a great horn owl. [00:12:31] The one of the reasons why they get into trouble as well, when they're going close to the ground or just flying after something, they're looking down and they're not looking ahead. That's why they could easily run into the side of a truck. On a side, you know, a highway and you see them very frequently on the side of the road. 'cause that's just what they did. They ran right into the side of it. They can run into power poles, they run into anything that's there in front of them they can run into. So it's, it can be dangerous. About 80% of fatalities are from traffic casualties, 80%. It is really important to keep your nest boxes away from the road and the highway and the entrance hole. Of course, we talked about this, Craig is always facing east and never facing a busy road. [00:13:27] Would you like me to talk about the nest box that we have come to? [00:13:32] Craig Macmillan: Yeah. First of all though, i, you know, you mentioned, mice and voles most of vineyards are interested in gophers. How important are gophers to their diet? [00:13:43] Bob Peak: Oh, extremely. They're, they're just like a vole. Very similar. They're like the, the same thing. They love gophers. I think that you'll find it in in vineyards like yours where you take a more natural approach to things. You're letting much Mother Nature do this work. And the gophers are very delicious for these barn owls they're meaty usually. The mice can be a little smaller, it's very good. That's why they prefer a gopher or a vol. [00:14:18] I know that some of the vineyards around also will spray and we talked about this you know, using no, , insecticides and things like that where yours is a, you know, a kind of a, a free zone and when you're spraying on the ground and things chemicals. Those are picked up by the rodents and things of that nature and transferred to the barn owl. So, another reason to take your approach to vineyard management. Very important step. It's, it keeps everything safe. [00:14:53] Craig Macmillan: Let's talk about barn owl nesting boxes now. You mentioned, you mentioned a couple of things. You said nightmare road. The opening facing east is preferable. Will they not nest if the opening is facing north or west or south? [00:15:08] Bob Peak: They will, but you're gonna expose them to wind and air and possibly rain that will you know, get in there. That's typical. Most of our, our, our weather fronts are coming from west to east, so it gives them a little added protection [00:15:26] also to that sun coming up in the morning. It gives some warmth into the box. Yeah, but those are, those are the, the real key points. [00:15:35] Another one too, craig, is to make sure that the box is well ventilated. It has to have ventilation holes throughout the box. It's best to have 'em on the floor so any liquid that does get in there can go through as well as on the side, so you can get a breeze through there. [00:15:55] Size also is very important. If you can think about having eight of those little barn outlets with two parents in there, you need a big box and for them to really thrive. [00:16:10] The larger the box, the better. The I've seen some boxes that are so small that it just, it gives the owl outlets less of a chance because they feel that they have to fight to survive a little more when there's not enough space. And I've heard of other owletes pushing other owletes out of the box just to increase their chances of survival. You know, it's kind of one of those survival of the fittest things. So the more room they have, the better it is for everyone. [00:16:47] Craig Macmillan: How big is appropriate? [00:16:49] Bob Peak: I would say probably three feet by two feet, to three feet, and probably two to three feet tall. [00:16:58] Craig Macmillan: Oh, okay. That's a lot bigger than most of the boxes. I see. Yeah. [00:17:01] Bob Peak: They are, they're much bigger. We've looked at a lot of other facilities that rescue barn owls. [00:17:08] We've even gone over to England. They have a a, a program with their owls as well. They had one of the more interesting boxes. it had on the outside a platform. Purchase basically. So these young ones can get out there and see the world, test their wings and then get right back inside if they need to. [00:17:29] Much bigger boxes, much heavier to work with. Again, that was the thing that we found. We, it was just a heavy box, but it was exceptional. But it was big. And they need to be cleaned. So any box that's built needs to have an access port to where you can get into it every couple years and clean out the droppings which need to be done very carefully, because again, as you know, some animal droppings can cause us harm. So you wanna make sure you wear a mask. [00:18:01] Craig Macmillan: Right. [00:18:02] Bob Peak: Again there's all kinds of issues and that, or, discussions about having a perch on the outside or ledge on the outside of that box. [00:18:12] It's nice because they can get out there, have a chance of getting out and getting right back in and not falling to the ground. That perch also is a chance for a great horned owl to come over and get itself on there as well, or on any of the little. Ledges that you built. [00:18:32] The key to all of this is the size of that entry hole. That entry hole cannot be bigger than about five and a half inches, really, five to five and a half inches any bigger than that. You're gonna a, a great horned l be able to get in and then, and it's just, it's not good. [00:18:50] Craig Macmillan: Right. So the, horned owl is a predator [00:18:53] my. It is, you wouldn't think, you know, owl to owl stuff like that. But yeah, it is. They are probably one of the more other than traffic fatalities, it's the, great horned owl [00:19:06] They are very aggressive. They know where these things live. They're very smart. The great horned owl, and again. If you get a young one out on a perch and it's there, it's, it could be could be done. [00:19:20] I have seen, 'cause I've been to a lot of vineyards in the area and I've seen a lot of large holes in these boxes and I actually went into one and it, it was occupied by great horned owl. it laid eggs in the box. [00:19:38] Oh wow. [00:19:39] Bob Peak: So. Well that is something too about owls. Is they don't make nests. [00:19:45] , the great horned owl will and barn owl will find a cavity. The great horn owl's, not a cavity nester, but they'll take an old hawks nest or eagle nest or something and make it their own. And then they tend to get into trouble because they're usually using a nest that isn't in that good of a shape. [00:20:04] Craig Macmillan: Hmm. What are some other things about sighting of boxes? We, we know not close to a road. We know the direction of the, the, of the opening. What are some things that will encourage the bar nows to nest there based on their other behavior? [00:20:19] Bob Peak: I, I think that you just have, to know, about approximately how many acres you have and you want to place a box about every five acres. You can actually have more boxes depending on how much food you have for them, but anywhere between five to 10 acres per box. Again, with the parameters of facing these, being the correct size and everything. So if you have a 50 acre property, you're looking at anywhere between oh five to 10 boxes on that property. [00:20:54] Craig Macmillan: And something that. I had heard was that it's good to have them near a tree. So that they have someplace that they can land right away when they come out of the box. Is that true? [00:21:05] Bob Peak: Yeah. I, we, we've experimented with that Absolutely. Again that's a more natural setting for them where they would be in the the hollow of a tree and come out and possibly be on a branch. Absolutely. I like that. I like that better than being on a pole. [00:21:24] As long as you still have access to the clean out and, and isn't too, you know, dangerous for someone to get up there. Yeah. I like that better than being on a pole without a [00:21:34] Craig Macmillan: Well actually having it in a tree. [00:21:37] Bob Peak: yes, [00:21:37] Craig Macmillan: Oh, okay. Because what I had been told was that you'd want to have one because of the horn dial. You have one on a pole, but have it close to a tree where they can just shoot out and land on a branch and look around and see if there's a threat. [00:21:51] But you say, actually put it in the tree [00:21:55] Bob Peak: it in the tree. [00:21:56] Craig Macmillan: fascinating. That's really interesting. [00:21:58] The way that I met you is you were looking. For clutches to, how should we say, transplant? Some some outlets that, That you folks had. And I learned that barn owls are one of the few raptors That will actually foster outlets from other clutches. That's true. [00:22:18] Bob Peak: That that is correct, Craig. Very good. Good research. Yes. We found that the barn owls were exceptional foster parents, which really gives those guys a chance to make it. [00:22:31] We found out that like you mentioned, the hawks and others just really don't do it. In fact, it would be dangerous to even attempt in some of the species. [00:22:41] One of our, original founders of Pacific Wildlife Care, Kelly was very successful in well all. Many of the things that she does for Pacific Wildlife Care, but she was able to get a red shoulder, a female hawk, to foster young red shoulder hawks for many, many, many years, and gave many of those a chance that wouldn't have a chance. The, the quite amazing I lost my train of thought. [00:23:13] Craig Macmillan: Well, we were talking about fostering and what I had learned from you was you were looking at the clutch that we had at niner, and apparently you, you need to match. The foster bird to the family in terms of its age and development, is that correct. [00:23:32] Bob Peak: That that is correct. Do you want to throw that young one in where there's other young and where there aren't adolescents? I. To where it's gonna have a chance to get some food. [00:23:43] Another thing that one of the other parameters for finding a foster box, you know, a barnell box is The number in there. If there's already five in there, it would be hard for me to put a one or possibly two in there and put that much added stress on the parent. To feed it, and we really can't ensure that that young one's gonna get fed with that many in the box. [00:24:11] I look for one that has maybe three, two, or three, and that additional one or two outlets is not going to stress the parents and the other young ones. But yes, you, you try to match up with age and size as well. [00:24:30] Craig Macmillan: You had mentioned that a nesting pair might have multiple clutches during a year and of different sizes, and if I, remember correctly, that has to do with the availability of resources. [00:24:42] Bob Peak: Yeah, absolutely. Craig. I have found over the years you know, we've the living on the central coast, it's feast and famine with the rain as well. [00:24:53] And I've seen years we're going around to different wineries. There might be 15 boxes and 12 or 13 or 14 of 'em are occupied. I've also. Gone around different seasons and hit 30 boxes and only two of them were occupied. That's how bad the food situation was. [00:25:16] Where we get into a pinch with our fostering and the barn owls finding a home for 'em is that we have a lot of farmers and ranchers in the Paso area. And a lot of 'em , get that hay. Some of the best hay you can get is out of Oregon and they bring a lot of that alfalfa and hay down. And when they're in the moving those bales around, after the farmer gets a, a load they discover that there's owl outlets in the hay bales. We receive a lot of outlets through the bales of hay that are shipped to us here. Locally from outta state, and those are the ones that we must have a foster box for because there's no chance of ever reuniting with their original parents. [00:26:07] Craig Macmillan: How do they end up in there? How do they end up in the hay? [00:26:10] Bob Peak: Oh, well, , imagine a big, giant stack of hay, 15 feet tall and you know, it sat there for months they'll, you know, there's little spots where they can get in and. It's quite nice for a nest. The they'll also use, palm trees and things of that nature where they can get in there. Yeah, so it's quite common for 'em to get into hay? bales [00:26:33] Craig Macmillan: What conditions overall, we've talked about a couple of different things, but like in the, in the grand scheme, what are the kinds of conditions that they're gonna be looking for in a, in a nesting box? I. [00:26:45] Bob Peak: as far as the owls and owls [00:26:47] Craig Macmillan: Yeah. So the, So when the nesting pair, is it, does the male find the nest and then attract the female or the other way around? [00:26:55] Or do they call up some kind of a bird, bird box realtor and go look at different, look at look at different spots and say, I like this one better than that one. Or [00:27:04] Bob Peak: that's a good question. I think it's more the female you know, they have that nesting instinct. 'cause they're gonna be laying the eggs. And I think that it's just, it's more like any, any female would tell you it's, it's a feel. it. feels good this place. And they don't tend to wander off very far from when, where they were born. [00:27:28] So this place has felt good to her for a while. A lot of times they'll use the same box over every single year. So that's why, again, it's nice to you know, you could even add boxes depending on, you know, just how many boxes are occupied. You can tell if you, if you've got 15 boxes and 13 or 14 of 'em are occupied, you could probably put more boxes on your property. [00:27:55] Craig Macmillan: In. Interesting. Yeah, I've seen that myself in vineyards where there'll be a one box located in just a spot. Doesn't seem to be very interesting to me or anything special. And the ground below it is just littered with, with pellets and bones and skulls and it is been going on for years, obviously. And then you go down 50 yards and there's nothing like the box doesn't look like the box has ever been in inhabited. [00:28:21] Bob Peak: Very true. [00:28:23] Craig Macmillan: And, it just has to do with kind of where they came from and they like to come back to the same box. I, think that's interesting. [00:28:30] Bob Peak: And, and it's more of a feel too, again of, of what's around, is there a wire that they have to dodge? Is there a tree? They might have seen a great horn owl over there in that other spot. Yeah. There, there, there's no telling what has, but mainly that nesting instinct drives that female to that box. [00:28:51] Craig Macmillan: Are there particular conditions you think that are like big, big red flags? You mentioned the presence of barn ows. You mentioned is there a wire? Are there definitely some situations where if I'm gonna place a box I, can look around and kind of go, yeah, it's probably not the best spot [00:29:05] Bob Peak: I, I think the key is what we, we, we were just talking about with wires, anything that's gonna get them tangled up. Sometimes the I've seen netting in trees. To keep reptiles even out, and you want to avoid placing a box around there. But I think the main thing is again, where most fatalities occur are close to the road. Keep them away from the road. That, that, that, that's really the most important. [00:29:32] Craig Macmillan: Something that I heard that I don't know is true was that when you, there are two things. [00:29:38] One, there's the question of whether you should paint the box or not, [00:29:42] and then two, that they won't come and nest unless the boxes had a chance to weather for a year or so. Are either of those true? [00:29:52] Bob Peak: , we've talked about that the painting on the outside of the box is fine. Throw up some white on there to you know, kind of keep it from getting too hot, but you don't want to paint the inside. The paint is fumey. The chicks could pick at it with their beaks. So there's all kinds of reasons why you wouldn't want it on the inside, but certainly on the outside. Yes. [00:30:17] You also want to avoid wood that has particular odors. There can be some wood that is very, very pungent cedars and things like that. And you want to be careful about that. So just a regular pine or regular fir box. And I think there's one that's preferable to another, but I'm not sure what that is. Pine versus fir. I could find out though. [00:30:44] Craig Macmillan: Well what, what about just basic plywood? [00:30:47] Bob Peak: Yeah. Well that's made out of a, usually a fir or a pine. [00:30:51] Craig Macmillan: Hmm. [00:30:52] Bob Peak: Exactly. [00:30:54] You can run that whitewash on the outside give it the vent holes. That's really the only only parameters. [00:31:03] Craig Macmillan: Are there other things that a grower can do to make an nesting box more attractive? I. [00:31:08] Bob Peak: I, I don't really have a mailbox out front or maybe a, you know, welcome some welcome home [00:31:15] Craig Macmillan: Just supply some gophers right in front of the box. [00:31:18] Bob Peak: yeah, maybe some gophers hanging outside now that might do it. No, not really. I think again, it's just a matter of need and a matter of availability. [00:31:30] Craig Macmillan: Right are there, are there other birds that compete for the nesting habitat, the naturally occurring habitat, [00:31:39] Bob Peak: As far as, [00:31:41] Craig Macmillan: I've heard that kestrels can be a competitor. [00:31:43] Bob Peak: yeah, kestrels are cavity nesters. That's a fact. But I think there's so many more options for them. They're much smaller. I. And there's so many little nooks and crannies and trees and other things like that to where most of the times, , I've not seen in my practice a kestrel in a barn owl box. I have seen great horns in there, but not kestrels. [00:32:10] Craig Macmillan: Got it. Is there one thing that you would tell a grower? One piece of advice that you would tell a grape grower on this topic? [00:32:20] Bob Peak: Let nature watch over your property. [00:32:23] Craig Macmillan: That's good [00:32:23] Bob Peak: It's been doing it since before you got here, and it'll do it after you've gone. That's how it's always worked. And work with it. And not work against it. [00:32:38] Craig Macmillan: It makes, makes a lot of sense. Where can people find out more about you in wildlife? [00:32:44] Bob Peak: Best is to go to our Facebook page or our webpage at pacificwildlifecare.org. Facebook page is great because there's a lot of videos and pictures. If you have children, it's wonderful because we have release videos there. [00:33:03] They can click on different links once they get to our Facebook page, find out ways to get involved. We're always, again, we're a 501(c)3 nonprofit, so like all of those, we're always looking for two things, people and money. So there's gonna be plenty of opportunity for people to get involved in both ways there on our websites. [00:33:26] And we have a lot of really, really wonderful things coming up. With this new facility there we're, really quite excited. [00:33:33] They can also call us at 805-543-WILD. That's really more of a, you know, a rescue line. But if you have general questions and you want to know more, you can please call them and they'll help you out in any way you want. [00:33:51] Craig Macmillan: That's fantastic. And actually I, do have one more question just occurred to me. If I do come along and find some outlets, they're out of the box, clearly they're not able to fly or they're not ready to go. , how do I handle that? [00:34:07] Bob Peak: Excellent. Thank you for bringing that up. That's an excellent question, Craig. [00:34:11] Best thing to do is to realize that. These young little outlets, as young as they look and as innocent as they look, they've got some talons on them. So you always want to avoid getting your hands near, near their, their their talents. [00:34:29] But the most important thing with a young one that falls out is to keep them warm. I would place them inside a box, put some bedding down or something in there to let them get snuggled into it. And call Pacific Wildlife Care, our hotline, and we'll have someone out there asap to get this guy give them a chance, but keep them warm and sheltered. For the night. You might have to hold them overnight, but as long as they're warm they'll be fine. And to not feed there's no need to give the animals any food. [00:35:04] Craig Macmillan: And, we have listeners around the nation and around the world, and I would imagine that there are similar organizations located in every state and the union. And so just do a little research And, find who your local people are. Because I was doing research on this myself preparing for the interview, And, I was really impressed by , the network really of wildlife rehabilitation globally around the world. I think there's actually an international association, if I remember right. [00:35:30] Bob Peak: Yeah. And thanks for bringing that up. We can't do this by ourselves. That's why we need our volunteers. We need other organizations as you mentioned. [00:35:41] We find that so many times when we have gotten in a pinch, we have relied on the Ojai raptor center. They have been invaluable as far as us being able to bring them animals that , we weren't able to take care of, but they are. [00:35:58] So if they can't do it, we can, or vice versa. It's an important network that one way or another we'll get it done. 'cause we have, volunteers that will travel anywhere to take care of these animals. [00:36:12] Craig Macmillan: That's fantastic. [00:36:14] Well. This was a great conversation. I, like I said, I met you when you were looking for a place to foster some owls, and it was just really, really, fascinating to me, having been around this topic for a very, very long time. the barn owl is kind of the mascot of vineyard team. It's on a lot of our, a lot of our stuff. And so we've been, we've been following this for a long time and I learned more from you in about an hour. Then I had learned in the preceding several decades, let's just put it. that way, several decades. And I, And I, really appreciated that. It was really, really great. And I really appreciate you being a guest. [00:36:50] Again, our guest today was Bob Peak. He's a volunteer with Civic Wildlife Care in san Luis Obispo County. And yeah, just thanks for being on the podcast. It's a really real pleasure. [00:37:01] Bob Peak: Thank you Craig. And again, thank you, for this opportunity. Again, please check out Pacific Wildlife Care. you'll love it. [00:37:08] [00:37:12] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. [00:37:13] Today's podcast was brought to you by Helena Agri Enterprises. Founded in 1957, Helena Agri Enterprises has grown to be one of the nation's foremost agricultural and specialty formulators and distributors In the United States products and services offered include crop protection products. Fertilizer specialized nutrients, seeds, and precision ag services and software. Helena's overriding goal is to help its customers succeed. This is achieved with a unique combination of dedicated and knowledgeable people, unique and useful products, and the latest technical knowledge. The company defines its own success through the success of its customers. [00:37:56] Make sure you check out the show notes. For links to Pacific Wildlife Care, the barn owl Trust in the United Kingdom, UC Davis' Raptor Center, plus Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast episodes 58 barnells 84 Falconry Bird Abatement, and 118 managing rodent pests and vineyards with integrated pest management. [00:38:18] If you liked the show, you can do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend, subscribing and leaving us a review. You can find all of the podcasts at vineyardteam.org/podcast, and you could reach us at podcast@vineyardteam.org. [00:38:31] Until next time, this is Sustainable Wine Growing with the Vineyard team.   Nearly perfect transcription by Descript

When the SLO Film Fest ends each year the show goes on with selected flicks offered at the Palm Theater in downtown San Luis Obispo.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander or AAPI Heritage Month. In celebration of this, Issues and Ideas invited MT Vallarta, pronouns they, them, theirs, a poet and Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at CalPoly, to be in conversation with William Nuʻutupu Giles, pronouns he/they, who is a poet, Samoan writer, and arts educator. Giles was in San Luis Obispo on May 7th, 8th, and 9th to do poetry readings and workshops at Cal Poly and in the city. Vallarta and Giles speak about their writing process and the importance of having a community. Then, for her segment Wine Country, wine journalist and editor Mira Honeycutt talks to Paso Robles winemakers Molly Lonborg, senior winemaker at Booker Wines, and Nancy Ulloa, winemaker and owner of Uyua Cellars, about the challenges they faced starting out in a male-dominated industry, their mentorship initiatives, and the importance of asking for help. And, we conclude our episode with Working Lunch, hosted by Jim Dantona, CEO for the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce. He speaks with Bill Borgsmiller, CEO of ACI Jet, about the latter's journey in establishing his company at just 22 years old and why he decided to base his aviation business in San Luis Obispo.

     Celebrate the convergence of counterculture and underground music in Air Tight Episode #139, hosted by The Alex on Green Coast Radio.  This special edition honors Bicycle Day (4/19), the cannabis holiday 420, and Easter, blending themes of psychedelia, cannabis culture, and spiritual rebirth.  Dive into an eclectic mix of underground hits, featuring soulful classics from Bill Withers, the raw energy of Soundgarden, the genre-defying sounds of N.E.R.D., and the unique stylings of Rico Bell.      In the headlines, The Alex shares his excitement to go to Shabang Music Festival in San Luis Obispo, a celebration of indie and electronic music that taking place on May 2nd and 3rd, 2025. He also reminds listeners to check out Part 11 of "Unknown Airwaves" on our YouTube channel, a series dedicated to unearthing hidden musical gems. For those seeking to discover new music, revisit great tracks, and delve into counterculture topics, tune into Green Coast Radio. Explore our "Station Gear" page at GreenCoastRadio.com for exclusive art and unique gift ideas that resonate with the underground and fringe communities.

Hometown Radio 05/05/25 6p: Doctors from UCLA Health in San Luis Obispo

In this episode of the SLO County Real Estate Podcast, Team Sweasey sits down with Michelle Figuroa, founder of Bright Solutions you can find them at brightsolutions805.com, to explore how her San Luis Obispo-based transition and relocation services streamline real estate transactions. Michelle shares her expertise in coordinating seamless moves by managing schedules, creating custom timelines, and handling logistics like organizing, decluttering, staging, and estate sales. Learn how Bright Solutions supports buyers, sellers, and real estate professionals by reducing stress and ensuring smooth transitions, allowing clients to focus on their next chapter. If your getting ready to sell, or even buy in SLO County, this episode offers valuable insights into how Michelle's personalized approach can enhance your real estate experience. Have your question featured on an episode of the SLO County Real Estate Podcast by texting it to 805-244-1170 or if you'd like to have a conversation with the team about your unique situation call team Sweasey at 805-781-3750 and you can always email Hal at Hal@teamsweasey.com for any questions you might have about real estate CA DRE #01111911

Stephen Lloyd-Moffett, professor of Religious Studies at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA, is also a campus moderator for the Veritas Forum, a non-profit organization that seeks to help students on college campuses explore truth in dialogue across religious beliefs. On today's episode, Tim, Rick and Stephen consider: What makes for a good moderator when disagreement pops up? And how do you keep the relationship in tact when a pointed and meaningful disagreement occurs? They discuss the importance of building muscle for inquiry and learning how to use educational environments to challenge and strengthen faith convictions. Tim and Rick also ask Stephen about the perceptions of evangelicals on the campus.Show notes and a full transcript are available.

0:00 - BLM Brandon digs in on sanctuary city: won't negotiate with terrorists 12:30 - CA high school Celeste Diest (Lucia Mar Unified SD, San Luis Obispo) on boy in girl's locker room 30:16 - Mark Penn on Dem Party, prospect of AOC as nominee 51:09 - Thomas Weitzel, retired Chief of Police of Riverside, points to the Safety Act as lawlessness continues to be the norm in Illinois. Follow Chief Weitzel on X @ChiefWeitzel 01:10:26 - Steven Bucci, visiting fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, on allegations of leaks out of the DOD "don't speculate... investigate" 01:23:40 - Sports & Politics 01:28:38 - Pro-Life Attorney and Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Mary FioRito, on Pope Francis and his "complicated legacy" Follow Mary on X @maryfiorito 01:42:16 - Dad tells teacher he doesn't want his kids instructed on the use of butt plugs 01:46:32 -Sen. Chris Van Hollen explains "Margarita-gate" with Abrego Garcia02:08:09 - Senior Counsel at the Article III Project, Will Chamberlain, on the Abrego Garcia case "he will never be reunited with his family in Maryland again... he never had a legal right to reside in the US to begin with" For more on the Article III Project article3project.orgSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's episode, Stephen Lloyd-Moffett, professor of Religious Studies at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA, speaks with Tim and Rick about the deeply human tendency to search for meaning in religious experience. Stephen shares a story from his younger years that would set him off on a vocational path of religious scholarship. The three then spend time discussing whether God can be found and whether we can know God - important questions that invite points of agreement and respectful disagreement. Through the discussion we also see a common value of wanting to acquire a conception of God that can profoundly shape how to live a life.Show notes and a full transcript are available.

Giovanna Silvestre is a lifestyle and wellness influencer, entrepreneur, and author.  Confused Girl in the City is her internationally established activewear brand. After graduating from the University of Southern California, she worked in the entertainment industry for a time before finding her talent with entrepreneurship. Giovanna's journey began with a blog that evolved into her brand that grew to being featured in media outlets such as NBC and Forbes. Her upcoming book, Confused Girl: Find Your Peace in the Chaos, combines memoir and self-help to inspire women to take their own self-discovery journey.ABOUT - Confused Girl in the City

Emily Long is the co-founder and CEO of Edera, the pioneer of strong workload isolation technology for cloud and AI infrastructure. She places the highest value on people and bringing diverse teams together to build something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Emily is a tactical and strategic leader who’s proven in scaling operations, fostering strong company cultures, and driving strategic execution. She’s also an unapologetic people person who believes in the capacity of humor and human connection to motivate and empower team members to achieve more. Prior to Edera, she was the COO at Chainguard, where she built, scaled, and led core business functions that helped lead the company to its Series C and Unicorn status. Emily also served as Chief Operating & People Officer at Anchore, where she oversaw business operations and sales and spearheaded its DEI initiatives. She’s also held strategic operations roles at LogicMonitor and KPMG. Emily is based in Santa Barbara, California and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mauricio Rodriguez Silva's life was a constant struggle—abandoned, abused, and cast aside at every turn. But did his tragic childhood create a monster, or was he always destined for violence? This episode of Almost Fiction unravels the disturbing life and crimes of a man who could have been saved… but wasn't.Sources:PEOPLE v. SILVA. Supreme Court of California. No. S004727. April 30, 2001. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ca-supreme-court/1072397.htmlPortrait of ‘The Monster' on Death Row By Claudia Núñez, Translated by Elena Shore for New America Media. January 4, 2011. Parolee pleads innocent to triple-murder charges. The San Bernardino County Sun. Fri, Jun 1, 1984. Page 10. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-san-bernardino-county-sun-parolee-pl/100605415/.Wanted in 3 slayings, man turns himself in. By Bill Schlotter for The Tribune. San Luis Obispo, California. Tue, May 29, 1984. Page 1. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-tribune-mauricio-silva/104446223/Parolee Found Guilty of Murdering 3 Teens. By Robert W. Stewart for The Los Angeles Times. Thursday April 18, 1985. Page 137https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-mauricio-silva/104446083/No Break for Teen Slay Suspect. The Napa Valley Register. Sat, Sep 29, 1984. Page 4.https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-napa-valley-register-mauricio-silva/104446101/Killer's Jury Deadlocks on Death Penalty By Paul Feldman for the Los Angeles Times. Friday July 26, 1985.https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-mauricio-silva/104446120/Silva to Face Sentencing Re-trial. By Tim O'Leary for The Lompoc Record. Wednesday August 21, 1985. Page 3.https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-lompoc-record-mauricio-silva/104446206/Jury Votes Death for Killer of Three Teen-Agers. By Terry Pristin for The Los Angeles Times. Thursday May 29, 1986. Page 41. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-silva/76785682/Death Penalty Nullified for Killer. By Ana Beatriz Cholo for The Los Angeles Times. Tuesday May 1, 2001. Page 20. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-mauricio-silva/104446159/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauricio_Silva_(serial_killer) Access ad-free episodes, bonus content, and get all of the 11:59 Media Podcast library!Access hours of extra content each week, exclusive merch, and early access to new podcasts.Visit https://1159plus.com or https://www.patreon.com/1159media 

Patty Blue Hayes was living in San Luis Obispo, California, recovering from a “near-death” divorce. Seeking a fresh start, she bought an RV and embarked on a cross-country journey across the United States. During one of her late-night real estate scrolling sessions, she came across a listing for a home in Panama that caught her eye. Intrigued, Patty parked her RV at the airport, booked a flight, and flew to Panama with the determination to see the house in person. However, Patty never did visit the property. Instead, she fell in love with Panama the moment she landed. Her love affair with the country was instantaneous. Eventually, she sold both her RV and home and made the bold decision to move to Panama. But the journey to find her dream home wasn't smooth sailing. Several homes she was interested in fell through, and Patty admits it was the hardest time she'd ever had trying to spend money. After much searching, she finally settled on a dilapidated fixer-upper in El Valle de Antón, Panama. Tune in to episode 207 of Retire There with Gilen & Gene to hear the story of what it's really like to purchase and renovate a home in Panama. Find out more about Patty by visiting her website, PattyBlueHayes.com. Her books include: (1) Wine Sex and Suicide-My Near Death Divorce; (2) The Self Care Workbook for Emotional Healing and Self Discovery After a Breakup; and (3) How to Change Your Life With Easy Mindfulness Micro Habits-Declutter Your Mind Stop Negative Thinking and Empower Yourself. Patty's casita in El Valle de Anton “Spacious Casita with Bamboo View” can be found on Airbnb. #retirethere #retiretherepodcast #retirewhere #retireabroad #retirehere #wheretoretire #retireearly #bestplacetoretire #retirement #retirementplanning #babyboomers #genxers #elvalledeanton #elvelle #elvalledeantonpanama #elvallepanama #panama #pattybluehayes

Danny Royer is the Farm Coordinator at UC Merced. From smart farms to reimagining supply chains, we'll hear how Danny blends innovation with the art of growing food. He and Monte explore farming that looks at scaling back costs with sustainable practices as well as inspiring the next generation through real-world experience. Instagram: @esf_ucm https://www.instagram.com/esf_ucm?igsh=aml5Z3pmZmlyMXJ1 Danny was born and raised in Merced, California. Merced is located in the heart of California's Central Valley and is surrounded by production agriculture. Not having family ties to agriculture though, Danny found his passion for farming and agriculture through 4-H, FFA and on his best friend's farm just outside of Merced. He started his career in farming by irrigating pistachios in Madera at age 16 and eventually found himself working summers on a construction crew for Merced Irrigation District. After high school Danny took his passion for Agriculture to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. While he was there he continued to focus on broadening his work experience by taking on jobs at the Cal Poly Foundation Dairy and the Cal Poly Farm Shop. Danny Graduated from Cal Poly in 2008 with a degree in Agricultural Systems Management and minor in Agricultural Business. Cal Poly had prepared him for life after graduation, but Danny attributes his summer internships and combined work experiences to preparing him for the grind that would become the next eight years of his career. After graduating Danny worked in management and leadership positions for some of the largest farms and food production companies in California. After years of operational roles Danny transitioned into a new role as the VP of Technology for world renowned Bowles Farming Company. It was ag tech that allowed Danny to start driving change in operations and redefining company cultures. Danny's vast and extensive agriculture operations experience combined with the onslaught of ag tech allowed him to shift his strategy to incorporate ag tech solutions. After years of implementations and improvement iterations though, Danny was ready for something more. Along with being a serial agriculturalist and technologist, Danny is an active member in his Community of Merced. He serves as the Chairman of the Board for the Community Foundation of Merced County and actively engages in community events and initiatives. Lastly and definitely most importantly to Danny, he is very much a family man. Danny is married with three children, who are the light of his life and his mission to create sustainable food systems is driven by a desire to see a more balanced and sustainable world for his family. Got questions you want answered? Send them our way and we'll do our best to research and find answers. Know someone you think would be great on the AgEmerge stage or podcast? Send your questions or suggestions to kim@asn.farm we'd love to hear from you.

What if, instead of fixating on what's left on your bucket list, you created an “anti-bucket list” of things you no longer need to do? This perspective-shifting idea comes from award-winning filmmaker Skye Bergman, who has gathered 3,000 years of collective wisdom from adults 75+ on how to live well.As milestone birthdays like 70 approach, many of us wonder if we'll have enough time to accomplish everything we desire. Bergman's documentary Lives Well-Lived and book Lives Well-Lived Generations challenge our youth-obsessed culture by showcasing vibrant, purposeful aging. Her research identifies four essential elements of a well-lived life: purpose, community, resilience, and positivity. Purpose evolves, especially after retirement, when professional identity shifts. The key is finding what truly brings joy—whether it's making mozzarella for your daughter's deli or volunteering to teach English. Bergman challenges ageist limitations with inspiring examples like her grandmother, who started working out at 80, and Ernestine Shepard, who became a champion bodybuilder in her 50s after losing loved ones to diabetes. These stories prove that age doesn't define what's possible.Bergman also highlights the power of intergenerational connections in combating isolation. Her monthly potluck dinners, bringing together women from ages 20 to 90, dissolve ageist divides and create a meaningful community.Ready to embrace aging on your own terms? It's time to create your anti-bucket list—letting go of what no longer serves you while embracing purpose, connection, and joy. Listen now to start redefining what's possible.Bio Sky Bergman is an accomplished, award-winning photographer. "Lives Well Lived" is Sky's directorial debut. The film is based upon her book "Lives Well-Lived Generations".Her fine art work is included in permanent collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (National Library of France) in Paris. Her book, The Naked & The Nude: Images from the Sculpture Series, includes an introduction by Hèléne Pinet, curator of photography at the Rodin Museum in Paris. She has shot book covers for Random House and Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., and magazine spreads that appeared in Smithsonian, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, Reader's Digest, and Archaeology Odyssey.Sky Bergman is a Professor of Photography and Video at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, CA.Websitehttps://www.skybergmanproductions.com/InstagramLinked InFacebookWe hope you have enjoyed this episode. Please like, comment, subscribe, and share the podcast.To find out more about Lynnis and what is going on in the V.I.B.E. Living World please go to https://link.tr.ee/LynnisJoin the V.I.B.E. Wellness Woman Network, where active participation fuels the collective journey toward health and vitality. Subscribe, engage, and embark on this adventure toward proactive well-being together. Go to https://www.vibewellnesswomannetwork.com to join. We have wonderful events, courses, challenges, guides, blogs and more all designed for the midlife woman who wants to keep her V.I.B.E. and remain Vibrant, Intuitive, Beautiful, and Empowered after 40+. Interested in an AI platform that meets all your needs? Click here

The Collegiate Beach Volleyball season just surpassed the midway point and we're seeing shifts from 2-5 without a lot of big changes in the rest of the AVCA top 20. A lot of the top teams were idle in week 5, but the ones that weren't saw solid action at the Big West Challenge in San Luis Obispo, CA and East Meets West in Austin,TX.   Although teams may have split their duals this last weekend, without a doubt the teams are developing in a beneficial way as we move closer to conference tournaments. The athlete panel chats about then No. 10 Texas' upset of then-No. 2 LMU, and the quality of each their flights. In addition, we discuss the dynamism of Cal Poly and how interchangeable their entire lineup is.   From there we discuss the top teams we've seen this last weekend and even drop the names of top performers!

Eric Chaya is a visionary in the realm of sustainable agriculture and military synergy. Originating from Wisconsin, Eric's journey has taken him from a traditional dairy-rich environment to pioneering innovative agricultural practices on military lands in California. His career path was notably influenced by his military service, which included a transformative period at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Here, he began to experiment with regenerative farming techniques using livestock such as cattle, pigs, and chickens to rejuvenate land. Eric's passion for sustainable farming and his military discipline have merged to create the Regenerative Grazing Open Air Lab (R-GOAL) in San Luis Obispo, where he continues to blend agricultural innovation with military training to enhance land stewardship and community resilience.The podcast covers a range of topics, including:Eric's transition from Wisconsin to California and his introduction to regenerative agricultureHis experiences in Africa and the U.S. with livestock relocationThe integration of agricultural practices into military training environmentsThe successful collaboration between military personnel and local ranchersThe innovative grazing management practices on Department of Defense landsThe personal anecdotes of his journey, including the emotional decision to part with his Brahman herdThe ecological benefits observed from these practices, such as increased wildlife sightings and improved landscapesListeners should tune in to this episode to gain insights into the unique intersection of military operations and sustainable agriculture. Eric's story is not only inspiring but also offers practical lessons on how dedication and adaptability can lead to remarkable outcomes in land management. The podcast provides a compelling blueprint for future initiatives that harmonize land use, community resilience, and ecological benefits, making it a valuable resource for anyone interested in regenerative farming, military innovation, or environmental sustainability.Links Mentioned in the EpisodeEric on LinkedInVisit our Sponsors:Noble Research InstituteRedmondGBT AngusGrazing Grass LinksNew Listener Resource GuideProvide feedback for the podcastWebsiteInsidersResources (Coming Soon)Community (on Facebook)Check out the Apiary Chronicles PodcastOriginal Music by Louis PalfreyChapters(00:00) - Introduction to Eric Czaja and Regenerative Ranching (00:20) - Fast Five: Quick Questions with Eric (01:09) - Eric's Farming Journey and Early Experiences (01:30) - Welcome to the Grazing Grass Podcast (02:06) - Insights on Regenerative Grazing (04:44) - Eric's Military Background and Transition to Farming (06:47) - Starting with Livestock: Pigs, Chickens, and Cows (17:24) - Moving to California and New Beginnings (25:42) - The Regenerative Grazing Open Air Lab Project (39:38) - Range Control and Personal Management (40:04) - Meeting the Rancher (40:49) - Innovative Grazing Techniques (42:21) - Coordination with Range Control (43:55) - Training and Grazing Integration (47:40) - Challenges and Lessons Learned (50:35) - Project Duration and Future Plans (51:05) - Benefits and Observations (53:13) - Tools and Resources (54:39) - Final Thoughts and Reflections

Succession planning is essential for businesses navigating leadership changes due to retirement, promotions, or new opportunities. Erin Hoffman, Partner and Senior Consultant at Collaboration Business Consulting shares key strategies for success. Long-term exit strategies (3, 5, and 10 years) help ensure a seamless transition. Key considerations include: How will the company evolve? Will the current management team remain? Who needs leadership development? Aligning stakeholders—whether family or business partners—is crucial. Addressing emotions like frustration or uncertainty and acknowledging these feelings can ease transitions. A solid game plan should outline financial considerations, role transitions, and leadership development. Regular management meetings and third-party reviews help maintain accountability. Ongoing leadership development and multiple succession pathways provide flexibility. Transparency in succession planning builds confidence and stability, ensuring business continuity through leadership changes. Resources:         221: Future Proof Your Wine Business with Omnichannel Communication Collaboration Business Consulting Collaboration Business Consulting Speaking Engagements Collaboration Business Consulting Resources Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.   Transcript [00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: Succession planning is essential for businesses navigating leadership changes due to retirement, promotions, or new opportunities. [00:00:13] Welcome to Sustainable Wine Growing with the Vineyard Team, where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic, Executive Director. [00:00:22] In today's podcast, Craig Macmillan, Critical Resource Manager at Niner Wine Estates, with longtime SIP certified vineyard and the first ever SIP certified winery, speaks with Erin Hoffman, Partner and Senior Consultant at Collaboration Business Consulting. [00:00:37] She explains that long term exit strategies from three, five, even 10 years helps ensure a seamless transition. [00:00:44] Key considerations include how will the company evolve? Will the current management team remain in place? And who needs leadership development? [00:00:53] Aligning stakeholders, whether it's family or business partners is crucial. Addressing emotions like frustration or uncertainty. And acknowledging these feelings can ease transitions. [00:01:03] A solid game plan should outline financial considerations, role transitions, and leadership development. Regular management meetings and third party reviews will help maintain accountability. Ongoing leadership development and multiple succession pathways provide flexibility. Because things are likely to change, transparency in succession planning builds confidence and stability ensuring that the business continues successfully throughout the leadership change. [00:01:29] If you want to be more connected with the viticulture industry but don't know where to start, become a Vineyard Team member. Get access to the latest science based practices, experts, growers, and wine industry tools through both infield and online education so that you can grow your business. Visit us at vineyardteam. org and choose grower or business to join the community. [00:01:48] Now let's listen in.  [00:01:53] Craig Macmillan: Our guest today is Erin Hoffman. She's a senior business consultant and partner at Collaboration Business Consulting. [00:01:59] And today we're going to talk about succession planning. Thanks for being on the podcast, Erin. [00:02:03] Erin Hoffman: Yes. Thank you. [00:02:05] Craig Macmillan: This is part of the SIP certified certification and one that I think is often overlooked and a lot of people don't really understand, but I think it's important no matter who you are. To take this into account. [00:02:15] So let's just start from the very basics. what is succession planning in business? [00:02:19] Erin Hoffman: Great question. Succession planning is really making sure that somebody besides you is available and ready to take on the reins or responsibilities when you leave or when you get promoted. And I think one of the things that people often overlook is they want to take on more responsibilities, but they're not thinking about, okay, if I'm doing that, who am I shifting some of those responsibilities down to? [00:02:42] Craig Macmillan: I noticed you mentioned in terms of also promotion. So there may be actually be some internal things within departments even that this could be important for. [00:02:49] Erin Hoffman: Absolutely. So often we think about succession planning of taking over the business or taking over the reins of the business or managers or leaders departure that can also mean, you know, I think managers, it's important to be thinking about their own promotion or taking on responsibilities as the business grows. [00:03:05] Craig Macmillan: And so why is this an important topic for people? [00:03:08] Erin Hoffman: This is probably the single most challenging issue for managers and leaders of businesses. Something that they often come to us and say, I wish I was more prepared or I wish I would have. Been doing this a few years ago. And it, it can really be a challenge for a business because there's a lot of institutional knowledge that is held within those managers and leaders. [00:03:26] And if they were to leave the business or when they want to retire, where does that transition go? It could take years to really get somebody up and ready. So that's why it's so important to think about. [00:03:36] Craig Macmillan: I'm guessing that this looks different for different types of businesses, different sizes of businesses. How would things be different for a small, let's say, family owned, family run business, as opposed to something that's maybe a little bit larger maybe it's a corporation, still perhaps owned by the family, but maybe a little bit different structure. [00:03:53] Erin Hoffman: Great question. All businesses, it starts with having a long term plan, but let's start with those smaller family businesses. It really starts with taking a look at what is that long term plan when we work with clients, we always look three, five years, and then maybe 10 or beyond what's that eventual retirement or exit plan and starting to align those actions with that. [00:04:13] So I'll give an example of a vineyard that maybe the owner is thinking about retiring in 10 years. They should be starting to think, what does that look like? Do I want it to remain a family business? Do I want management to remain in the business? If so, do I have those people in in place? So starting to think first, what is that long term goal? [00:04:33] And then we can start to work backwards into who needs to be developed or where there might be gaps. [00:04:39] Craig Macmillan: So what does this process actually look like? Like, when a client comes to you how does this actually play out? [00:04:44] Erin Hoffman: Great question. When we work with a client on this we start exactly there, what I, where I mentioned at the long term plan. So asking the leader or business owners, , what is that goal? What is that Long term strategy, not only for yourself and your retirement, but also for the business and what you want that legacy of the business to be and getting really clear on that. [00:05:05] Often there's especially family businesses, but also non family businesses. There's partners. So getting alignment between those partners on what that long term goal is. And from there, then we would make sure that we bring in, it. Potential successors. Often these are family members, sons or daughters bringing them into that process. [00:05:24] Once the owner is clear of what their goals are, , we want to bring in that the successor to start talking about what that looks like and make sure they're also aligned with the goal. [00:05:33] So that's our first step. The couple of things that we run into when going through that process is. Uncertainty of what that looks like for the person that's departing and really working through getting that clarity. [00:05:47] The other thing that we run into quite frequently is the emotions that are tied up in these types of changes. And we work with that throughout the whole process. So when we start, we let. Folks know that they're going to go through some stages similar to the stages of grief when they go through a succession planning process and as they go through that process because they will start to feel frustration or anger or, you know, frustration that the person that they're handing it off to isn't doing it the way they want it or not stepping up. [00:06:16] So there's a lot of different planning, but also emotion that comes into it. [00:06:20] Craig Macmillan: I can imagine this must be a very scary process for a lot of folks, because you're kind of looking at what, oh, wait a minute, like what's going to happen and what's possible to happen. And then there's the question of what's the best outcome. And that's where you're talking about getting the partners and the family involved. [00:06:37] So they're all sharing that same, that same vision. How do you facilitate that step? How do you get the players to kind of come together? [00:06:46] Erin Hoffman: You know, the 1st, as I mentioned, we start with if we're working with a business owner, we start with them because it really is about their desired outcomes and timeline. But we start with individual interviews and talk with each of the key. Individuals, partners key personnel in the business and also potential successors to really understand the motivations and desires, but also the other factors that might be impacting the business, the roles, the talent, et cetera. [00:07:15] So from there, once we have a good understanding and had a chance to hear everybody one on one, we bring everybody together in the decision making team. So this would be like your owners or partners or family and discuss, Hey, here's our findings. Here's where there's commonalities. [00:07:28] Here's where there's some, there may be differences. The first step is getting everybody on the same page with what, we're trying to achieve. [00:07:35] Craig Macmillan: Are these processes normally put into place or started by the leader, the, the owner, the CEO, whatever type of business it's structured as or is there some pressure from folks that see that there's going to be an exit at some point and they're like, Hey I'd like some stability here. I don't want to wake up one day and find out that my entire world has just came crashing down which is, which has happened to me [00:07:59] Erin Hoffman: Surprise. Yeah. Yeah, that's a, great question. And the answer is both. We've had both the , owner proactively come in and say, this is something they've been thinking about. And the successor the most common thing we hear from both parties is, Hey, we've been talking about this for a while and we haven't been able to make any headway. [00:08:18] It's not so much that it's not discussed or , they don't know. It's just. It's been this vague, long term kind of nebulous goal that there's always work to be done, it's always busy, and it doesn't get picked up. So when we talk to folks, either the successor or the leader is saying, Hey, we've been trying to do this and we just haven't seemed to figure it out. [00:08:39] Can you help us? And that's where we come in and we really have a structure to be able to start to Put all the pieces in place. We find that once people have a game plan, they're really good at carrying out the plan. usually business owners only go through this once in their lifetime. So it's really, there's not a blueprint. [00:08:54] Craig Macmillan: And this plan, I'm guessing, takes the form of a written living document [00:09:01] Erin Hoffman: We have a couple documents that we come away with. So the first one is going to be a partnership agreement. So typically. If the plan is to bring somebody into ownership, there's a period of time where and this is again, this is more for ownership. It might not be in for management teams, but if if there is a period of time where there's going to be some co ownership, we want to get everybody very clear on what is the decision making. [00:09:28] What is that going to look like as partners? What's the expectation for that retiring partner? And that the process of how that looks, this is where some of the things can go south or. Okay. Get ugly for families or businesses because nobody wants to talk about the money components of it. But then if there's misunderstandings, they could go south really quickly. [00:09:47] So we get clarity on that. That's 1 document. The other document is we create a milestone document, which is a year over year, or sometimes quarter over quarter plan of these are the shifts that are going to happen in the roles. Here's who's going to take on those responsibilities, maybe even days of the week. [00:10:04] How many days a week is that person going to be working? Maybe they're starting to step back all of that. [00:10:08] Craig Macmillan: So there may be some very specific things in terms of like job description, tasks assigned. Like you said, time allotted. How do you keep track of that moving forward? Because you're going to revisit this year to year. I imagine that these benchmarks need to be hit in order to keep things on track. [00:10:26] How does that process work? You put it on the calendar. Okay, next year on March 1st, we're going to meet and we're going to go over this again. [00:10:32] Erin Hoffman: We definitely want to build in that accountability to the plan because it's really easy to fall back into the habits of just doing it the way you've always done it. We recommend at the very least. That the the leaders are having a monthly management meeting, and this is getting talked about on a monthly basis. [00:10:49] We don't wanna put it in a drawer for a year and then pick it back up. And there should be some some openness to be able to hold each other accountable of, Hey, we're behind track on this, or we need to move forward on this. Uh, So that's, that's one of the things that we recommend. [00:11:02] The other piece. Our team can come in and help or getting somebody that's maybe that third party that , you're setting a meeting with maybe monthly or quarterly, or even semi annually, just to check in of where you're at. Increase that extra accountability of yes, we're sticking to the plan. It's like seeing your personal trainer and having to say you didn't do any of your push ups. [00:11:23] Craig Macmillan: Right, right, right, right. I like that analogy. That's a good one. That's a really, really good one. Accountability makes a big difference. [00:11:30] Erin Hoffman: for sure. [00:11:31] Craig Macmillan: yeah, I've worked on projects around that before. It's fascinating. Just simply saying, I am going to do this to another person goes a long way towards getting that thing done because you, you know, you made a promise. [00:11:42] Erin Hoffman: Yeah, I get a lot of that from our clients of, Oh, Erin, we knew we were going to meet with you next month. So we, we had to sit down and like, you know, knock it out. So it's like just that accountability of. [00:11:52] Craig Macmillan: What are some of the most common mistakes businesses make around succession planning? [00:11:58] Erin Hoffman: It's another great question. , there's a few. I think that one of the biggest ones that comes to mind, especially when it's a family business or an employee to an employer where that is stepping into the leadership. Often discount that person who's stepping into the role, how much they respect the person that's already in that role. [00:12:17] Let's say they're the, you know, the owner in this example. So they, one of the mistakes is that the owner is like, Oh, I'm just waiting for this person to step up. And in the meantime, I'm just going to keep doing the role. Like I've always done. They don't realize that that person under them respects them too much to say. Move out of the way. Let me, you know, I need to do this now. [00:12:37] So they there's a natural kind of deferment and it's even if that person is your parent and it's gonna even, you know, increase that. So really understanding that that's a natural dynamic that's going to happen and that . It's we're having that plan and being able to speak to the plan on a regular basis really comes into play. [00:12:55] So that's probably 1 of , the, the mistakes as I mentioned, talking about it, but not really moving anything forward is 1. [00:13:01] I think the other piece goes back. Into the, that the stages of grief or the emotion that comes in you know, I think it can be really difficult when suddenly feeling like, okay, what is my role in the business? [00:13:15] I hear that a lot from folks that are, even though their goal, they, they have a retirement in sight and that's their goal. There's a definite frustration or confusion of, okay, what now? What's next? And so there's. Tends to be you know, they go through bargaining. We had one client that was I think they were a week away from signing off a hundred percent of ownership to his son and came in and goes, know, I think we could extend this another three or four years, you know, just like, it was like they were working the plan and, [00:13:42] Craig Macmillan: Right. [00:13:43] Erin Hoffman: But it really comes from a place of just that uncertainty and change that people run into. [00:13:48] So I think that's the other problem is when faced with that change in those emotions, sometimes they. Blame the process or the person and not that just recognizing that those are natural emotions. [00:13:58] Craig Macmillan: This is a little bit of a side, but how, how do you advise people around these emotional issues? Because you're moving from being a business consultant into being a therapist at this point. [00:14:07] Erin Hoffman: Yeah, a little bit. [00:14:09] Craig Macmillan: A little bit. A little bit. [00:14:10] Erin Hoffman: I think anybody that's in business and that, you know, deals with people realizes that that's, you know, that's the big component of it is you know, the working with people and , through all the challenges of emotions and things that happen. But One of the best things is knowing, normalizing it, letting people know this is normal and this is going to happen. [00:14:30] It really helps when somebody is going through that, those feelings to just know that they're normal and it's okay. And that they can feel it. It really is a relief for a lot of business owners, especially when they're having a consultant that's gone through it. to say, expect this to happen. It's completely normal. [00:14:49] It really can help just settle everything down. [00:14:52] Craig Macmillan: Without naming names, can you give us an example of a transition? And ownership or management that could have gone better. There's some thought had been put into secession planning earlier. Or at all. I would imagine some folks are coming to you kind of behind the curve on this, from what you're telling me. [00:15:10] Erin Hoffman: Sure. Absolutely. I think of one winery owner that came to us and he said, you know, I, I wanted to retire five years ago at this point he was in his seventies and so that that's always hard because the, the people on his team weren't. You know, I hadn't really started to develop yet. [00:15:29] So , that can be frustrating. And I think that it can be a real detriment to the business if that person just says, you know what, I'm done, you guys have it, you know, like, or I'm going to just sell it. It might not be the outcome that everybody would have hoped for. In this case you know, it worked the plan and it actually did work out well. [00:15:47] And, I went through all of the, you know, some of the challenging emotions, but actually came to us later and said, you know, I'm actually really enjoying, what I'm doing, because he was able to really scale back his role. So it's, it's never too late, but I think it's also never too early. It's always good to start thinking about this and always be. [00:16:04] And know what that long term plan is you know, God forbid unexpected things happen to have another client where, you know, suddenly a you know, two business partners and one unexpectedly was incapacitated and there was no planning, advanced planning, not really a lot of development of other team members. [00:16:21] So it took years for that partner to really sift through all of that, the challenges of building the business back up and, and dealing with that. I [00:16:31] Craig Macmillan: talking to your team, let's say you're the leader, let's say you're the owner and CEO of the company. You've been doing it forever. Like you said, people will tend not to develop unless there's space. To develop into what kinds of advice do you have for folks that are in that ownership, management, leadership to develop their team so that those folks are ready to move up to these new roles. [00:16:59] Erin Hoffman: think it's first starts with intention, so it takes the owner really sitting down and thinking through his or her role and where he'd like to see people develop and get penciling that out and even thinking about who on the team do they see the capability and the desire to develop the next step is really you know, talking to that person, making sure there's buy in we, if we don't want to create a development plan for somebody without getting them bought into that, that's actually what they want. [00:17:28] But then creating that space, I think once, you know, , we've identified some of those skills and responsibilities, we've talked to the person, then it's time to create some space. So really, it, is a little bit of for the owner or. Leader to, you know, sit back, sit on their hands a little bit, let that person take on some of the the responsibilities. [00:17:47] I always use the example of, it's like when you teach your kid to ride a bike. They're going to fumble. They're going to, you know, kind of wobble back and forth. You're going to give them some training wheels, but at no point do you get back on that little pink huffy and say, I can do it better. [00:18:00] Let me just show you how to do it. Right. You've got to, you've got to let them do it a little bit. And ideally, if you're, if you're planning ahead, As you know, any business leader should be thinking forward. You're, you're doing this in advance and building their skills up over time and not just, in a short burst where you need them to develop all at once. [00:18:18] Craig Macmillan: It's better to maybe have some swimming lessons than just to be tossed into the deep end. [00:18:22] Erin Hoffman: Yeah, yeah, exactly. [00:18:23] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, I can see that. I can definitely see that. Are there surprises sometimes that come up and there's one type of situation that I'm familiar with, I've seen before where a winery owner or vineyard owner, , they started all this mid career probably, or maybe even early career with the intention that this would be a family legacy. And then come to find out later on down the road, the family really isn't that interested in carrying on this legacy. That's gotta be a very difficult situation. If you find that you don't have your team, [00:18:59] Erin Hoffman: I, I think the one way to think about it is always have. Multiple roads or multiple plans that are going in the same direction, because it is common that somebody that you're developing decides that that's not for them and they drop out, or the family member decides that they don't want to be in that business, or that an opportunity comes to merge or to sell. [00:19:23] And that it really, you know, it's not what you thought it would be, but it turns out to be a really good solution. one of the things that we always advise is to be . Going in the path that all of these roads work out well, which is really starting to make sure that you're not the only person that knows how to run the business. [00:19:40] So if it's a family member, for example, we've had family members that say, you know what, I'm not really interested in working in the business and some businesses that were able to stay a family business, hire a general manager that was an employee and still sustain that family legacy. That's the one option, but. [00:19:56] it came from that owner being able to start to shift some of those responsibilities to, and create a clear job description of a leader or management team that could run the business. So I think always be prepared for those types of scenarios because we have seen people drop out or plans change. [00:20:15] I had one client just recently where it was an employee purchase and the employee. Kind of the final hour said, you know what? I just, this isn't for me. I don't want to move forward. And they felt like all their plans were for nothing. But they just came back to me. It was about a year later and they said, we have a new employee. [00:20:33] He's great. All of the plans that we've already put in place are. Already in place. So it's, it's already set up for us to start getting this person ready. You always want to be prepared for that. [00:20:44] Craig Macmillan: yeah, that could be exciting for a lot of folks too. I think you may be in a spot where you're in the middle and you're kind of doing your thing and you just don't really see any chance for advancement because. Mom and dad are still running the show and he seemed pretty happy doing that. If there is kind of a, a plan and a vision, I would say of where I can be in five years, I would imagine that probably helped with buy in from the whole team, I would think. [00:21:10] Erin Hoffman: That kind of speaks to another thing that business owners are afraid of, of even talking about this with their team. Oh, I don't want to talk about retirement because I might scare people and they leave, but what we found is the opposite is true. When you're sharing, hey, we're really thinking over the long term. [00:21:25] We have a long term plan. Here's potential opportunities that can be inspiring for folks. People feel more comfortable because they know that there's a plan. Don't make the mistake of being really hush, hush about it because people are more afraid of the unknown than the known. That's the fact that you're thinking about it and making plans. [00:21:42] People will feel good about it. The other thing that's interesting is especially for those family business owners out there. When doing a process like this, we tell people you have to separate the family hat from the employee hat. And because often you started the business family and working in the business is one in the same, but you have to be able to separate like what what's ownership. [00:22:07] And what are those responsibilities and what are the roles and responsibilities of an employee? Like, could I hire a general manager to come in and do these responsibilities? And then what's the responsibilities of that and risk of the owner. [00:22:21] Craig Macmillan: This is very realistic. I can imagine there's some folks who have aspects of their job that they really enjoy and they're really good at. And then if they're looking at new roles, there probably might be some things that they're not so excited about doing. And it's perfectly all right from understanding it to say, hey, this little gap here, we can fill it a different way. [00:22:38] We can meet. What the business needs in a couple of different creative ways of doing it. We don't all have to be scared and freaked out. Let's just be very clear on what it is that you like to do, that you will do, that you can do in the areas where maybe we need some help. [00:22:52] Erin Hoffman: Yep, exactly. We want to really understand knowing what the business need is, and then where people can really fit into a role where they're going to thrive and enjoy it. [00:23:01] Craig Macmillan: This reminds me again, this is from personal experience where there was a transition and the owner wanted to sell. The business and it was a family business and the general manager was family. I was a hired gun. And when he came to us and said, Hey, I want to, I'm going to sell this thing. Both the grandson of myself like freaked out. [00:23:20] We were like, Oh no, we put all this effort into this and it's all going to go away. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. You're part of the package. You are the vineyards and the buildings and all that. Then there's you, you guys are part of what I'm selling because you do such a great job. [00:23:34] Erin Hoffman: Yeah. [00:23:35] Craig Macmillan: Is, is that a real thing? [00:23:37] Like if you, if you're own a business and you're talking to a potential buyer is that buyer going to be interested in who you have and how they work and what your team is like, or is it going to be clean house? [00:23:46] Erin Hoffman: Great question. I absolutely, they're interested. So think about it. If I'm, going to buy a business, number one. If the owner is doing all of a lot of the work and has a lot of the knowledge, and I know that owner is leaving as soon as I buy the business, that's a big risk. So what I don't want is I don't want that owner to be heavily involved in the day to day. [00:24:06] And I don't want that owner to be the sole source of any information, especially about business operations. However, if. That business has a strong management team that have experience, loyalty to the business, knowledge. And when I purchased that business, their knowledge is going to come with that as long, you know, as long as I treat them well, that's highly desirable. [00:24:28] if the owner is heavily involved and there's no management team, then the business is going to be heavily discounted by that buyer, because , there's a lot of work that needs to be done to get that business up and running to the point where it's self sufficient. [00:24:43] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, I've often wondered about that because I I see two models. I see folks that have built up a business, they sell it and then they go to Hawaii and that's it. They walk away. And then I've seen businesses where the, the owner who's selling sticks around for a period of time and usually has a contract that says I will be available for these things for the next so long. [00:25:03] How long is a reasonable transition period? If I'm planning on retiring and I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm good to go. But I got to do this. How much time do I need to think I'm going to be involved? [00:25:15] Erin Hoffman: It's a great question. If it depends on if it's a sale to an outside party or an internal, you know, I think if it's a employee succession, there may be, it's going to be a longer off ramp period. And often it makes sense for that business owner to either stay on as a consultant or an employee for a period of time. [00:25:35] Not only for. The kind of retirement plans of that owner, but also for the benefit of the the business and continuing on that being said if it's an outside buyer, I would say it'll limit it at a year. , it's a real difficulty with maybe the option to renew, but I've seen some owners that have entered into longer contracts with the buyers. [00:25:57] years. And. in some situations that works out, but in some situations that they really start to change because somebody comes in and they're starting to make all kinds of changes to what was your business. You're now an employee after being an owner for a period of time. And honestly, you're kind of ready to go and do the next thing. [00:26:13] So. You think about how long can you work under that that kind of contract situation. Sometimes the financial looks positive, but lot of people are unhappy, especially if it's over a year of doing something like that. [00:26:28] Craig Macmillan: so this doesn't have to stretch out forever, [00:26:29] Erin Hoffman: It does not have to stretch out forever. And honestly, I think that, again, it can be uncomfortable for both parties. [00:26:34] The owner seeing changes and they, you know, maybe that they wouldn't have done. And then the new buyers and they're kind of. Having to be mindful of the owner's feelings about what they might be doing again. There's, there's all different scenarios, but typically when done well as a faster transition that works well, I think still being available to answer questions is like on a per contract or per as needed basis is useful, but not as a, like a contract employee. [00:27:00] Craig Macmillan: right? In all of your experience with this, is there a again, without naming names, is there a really great success story that you've seen? [00:27:09] Erin Hoffman: Yes, we've seen a lot of really great success stories, and we've seen it for different reasons. You know, I give a couple of different scenarios. One was a multi generational business. So they were actually going from 2nd generation to 3rd generation and had. By this point had a lot of family members working in and out of the business and had also some family dynamics and fighting conflict that was happening. [00:27:33] And so by getting really clear on what the expectations of that owner had and versus working in the business and what the requirements were, and really making the requirements for somebody working in the business. You had to fit the job description and qualifications. That was a huge success and really brought that family back together, but also the success of the business. [00:27:54] The other one that we've seen. Success. I mentioned earlier, the owner that, you know, a week before transitioning the business to his son was said, you know, maybe I'll stay on for a few more years they stuck with it. They, they signed it over and the business is thriving. It's, it's continuing to grow the energy of the son coming in. [00:28:16] He's developed a management team under him and. The father is now having, now that he's actually had the chance to go through it, is feeling really satisfied as being an advisor and seeing the success of the business, but not being tied to the business. He was ready to retire. [00:28:32] Craig Macmillan: That's really great. And I hope everybody has that kind of experience. Is there one thing that you would tell folks on this topic? One piece of advice or one insight? [00:28:42] Erin Hoffman: One piece of insight is. We, you know, talked about starting sooner than later, but the other one is, you know, planned for the unexpected. it never goes 100 percent like you think it will. And sometimes I'll explain it like you dump out a puzzle and all the puzzle pieces are upside down. [00:28:57] So you're just taking time to flip over the puzzle pieces and figure it all out. Plan for a few unexpected things to come in there, you know, maybe midway through your finance person decides they're leaving or the loan that they thought the buyer was going to get falls through. There's all kinds of different scenarios. [00:29:13] So I think having that flexibility and knowing that that's part of the process and planning those multiple paths is really important. [00:29:21] Craig Macmillan: That's good. Great advice. Where can people find out more about you? [00:29:25] Erin Hoffman: They can visit our website. It's collaboration llc. com. We're based in San Luis Obispo. We've been on the central coast for over 20 years. So we'd definitely be happy to talk to anybody if they're interested about this topic. [00:29:40] Craig Macmillan: Fantastic. And we will have lots of links and and resources on the show page. So please feel free to check those out. I guess today was Erin Hoffman. She is a senior business consultant and partner in collaboration, business consulting. And I just really want to thank you for being here. This is really interesting. [00:29:57] It's a topic that most people don't think about. [00:29:59] Erin Hoffman: Yeah, great. Well, thank you for having me. It's really great to talk about it.   [00:30:07] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. [00:30:08] Today's podcast was brought to you by Vineyard Industry Products, serving the needs of growers since 1979. Vineyard Industry Products believes that integrity is vital to building a long term customer, employee, and vendor relationships, and they work hard to provide products at the best prices they can find. Vineyard Industry Products gives back by investing in both the community and the industry. [00:30:32] Make sure you check out the show notes for links to collaboration, business consulting, and their informative blog. [00:30:38] Plus sustainable wine growing podcast episode. 221, future proof your wine business with omni channel communication.  [00:30:46] If you liked the show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend, subscribing, and leaving us a review. You can find all of the podcasts at vineyardteam.org/podcast, and you can reach us at podcast at vineyardteam. org. Until next time, this is Sustainable Wine Growing with the Vineyard Team.   Nearly perfect transcription by Descript

Managing pests like powdery mildew, downy mildew, botrytis, and sour rot can be a complex challenge. Andy Fles, Vineyard Manager at Shady Lane Cellars in Michigan, shares insights from his USDA Sustainable Ag Research Education producer grant project. The project compares two pest management approaches: a ‘soft' pesticide program and a conventional one. Andy conducted the experiment using his on farm sprayer, providing real-world results. Despite climate variability and fluctuating pest pressures, the soft pesticide program proved effective. The project underscores the potential of using softer chemistries to manage disease while maintaining fruit quality. Resources:         REGISTER: April 25, 2025 | Fungicide Spraying: Evolving Strategies & Grower Insights 80: (Rebroadcast) The Goldilocks Principle & Powdery Mildew Management 117: Grapevine Mildew Control with UV Light 197: Managing the Sour Rot Disease Complex in Grapes 219: Intelligent Sprayers to Improve Fungicide Applications and Save Money 235: Battling Fungicide Resistance with Glove Sampling Rufus Issacson, Michigan State University Shady Lane Cellars Secures $11K National Farming Grant Timothy Miles, Michigan State University Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.   Transcript [00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: Managing pests like powdery mildew, downy mildew, botrytis and sour rot can be a complex challenge. [00:00:10] Welcome to sustainable Wine Growing with Vineyard Team, where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic executive director. [00:00:21] In today's podcast, Craig McMillan, critical resource Manager at Niner Wine Estates. With Longtime SIP Certified Vineyard and the first ever SIP certified winery speaks with Andy Fles, vineyard Manager at Shady Lane Cellars in Michigan. Andy shares insights from his USDA Sstainable Ag Research Education Producer grant project. The project compares to pest management approaches, a soft pesticide program and a conventional one. [00:00:50] Andy conducted the experiment using his on farms sprayer, providing real world results. Despite climate variability and fluctuating pest pressures, the soft pesticide program proved effective. The project underscores the potential of using softer chemistries to manage disease while maintaining fruit quality. [00:01:10] If you'd like to learn more about this topic, then we hope you can join us on April 25th, 2025 for the fungicide spraying evolving strategies in Grower Insights tailgate taking place in San Luis Obispo, California. Dr. Shunping Ding of Cal Poly will share updated results from a study on the efficacy of different fungicide programs containing bio fungicides. [00:01:34] Then we will head out into the vineyard to learn about new technologies for integrated pest management and talk with farmers from different growing regions about their program. Now let's listen in.  [00:01:49] Craig Macmillan: Our guest today is Andy Fles. He is the vineyard manager at Shady Lane Cellars in Michigan. And today we're going to talk about a pretty cool little project. He's got going looking into two different pesticide programs. Thanks for being on the podcast, Andy. [00:02:03] Andrew Fles: Yeah, my pleasure, Craig. [00:02:05] Craig Macmillan: So you have a grant from the USDA sustainable agriculture research and education program. To look at what you call a soft pesticide program for your vineyard in Michigan and comparing it to what we would call a sustainable or sustainable conventional program. What do you define as a soft pesticide program? [00:02:25] Andrew Fles: Well, that's kinda just a, a term that we applied to identify it. I didn't want to use organic because I thought that there would be a good chance we would utilize things that are considered by the industry to be very soft in terms of you know, they're not a harsh chemical or a carcinogenic, a known carcinogenic compound. [00:02:49] But something, for example, like. Like horticultural grade peroxide, which goes by several different trade names. So that's just, it's hydrogen peroxide and it is a disinfectant that turns into water and oxygen. So it's pretty Soft in terms of what it does to beneficials and, and plants and, and such. [00:03:11] We utilize some of those products already in our spray program. But combined also with, we're probably 50 percent organic in terms of what we spray out. for fungicides, pesticides, insecticides. And so we're still altering in some synthetic compounds. [00:03:28] And we wanted to compare that, what we currently do, to something that was much softer, like only soft compounds. Something that could be considered a OMRI certified organic program, or, or almost, right? Like maybe there's just one or two things that are very soft, but not technically OMRI certified. [00:03:49] Craig Macmillan: Right, and I do want to , get into the weeds on that a little bit later. Cause it's a, it's an interesting, Set a program that you've got going and I have lots of questions about them. What inspired this project? [00:04:01] Andrew Fles: I think just that continued movement towards investigating what works here in the east. You know, we, of course, get more wetting events and, and wetting periods that cause more fungal issues here compared to the west coast. And so we really, you know, we have to have an eye on sustainability. Certainly at Shady Lane, we really push for that. [00:04:25] But we also need to make sure that we have a marketable crop. We need to make sure the wine quality is, is high and acceptable for our standards. And so you know, if we're talking about, you know, every year is quite different here. We can get a, like, for example, in 2024, very wet in the first half of the year, very, very dry in the second half. [00:04:51] And, and then, which was quite different from 23 and quite different from 22 and so on and so forth. so, so some years we need to kind of step in and use a synthetic product here at this key time or, you know we need to protect our, our, our wine grape quality. [00:05:07] Craig Macmillan: What are the primary pests and diseases in your area? [00:05:11] Andrew Fles: So we have issues with the usual suspects that powdery mildew, of course. That's, that's fairly, I think if you're on top of your game, that's, it's pretty controllable. Even with soft products here it's just a spray frequency and coverage issue. [00:05:27] Downy mildew is something that can be quite challenging in certain years. [00:05:31] And there's, and there's less tools in the toolbox to use for that as well. And so you gotta, you gotta be on top of that with scouting preventative, like canopy, you know, canopy management practices that deter too dense of a canopy or, or clusters that are. hidden behind several layers of leaf. [00:05:53] Those are going to cause problems for you no matter what you're spraying, synthetic or organic, right? So, so we try and utilize all those things and and then we, we can also have issues in some years with botrytis and even sour rot and tight clustered varieties. So, so we were looking at sour rot and botrytis in the, in the cluster analysis of this portion of the , project. [00:06:18] Yeah, we have some locations can struggle with grape erinium mite. That's becoming more and more prevalent here. Wasn't an issue four years ago. Not, not really up in, up in northern Michigan anyway. So that's becoming more and more of an issue. And then we always struggle with rose chafers. It's a, it's a grub that, you know, comes out for six weeks and really terrorizes the vines. [00:06:49] And for that, for that pest, we really walk the line of the economic damage threshold, right? So, so a little, you know, we're going to see rose chafers every year. Some years are better than others. And what is our acceptable damage, you know? And so, once we see the rose chafers really getting dense in number, and also, you know, munching on a few leaves is one thing, munching on the clusters and the shoot tips is another thing. [00:07:21] Craig Macmillan: That's what I was going to ask. Yeah, I'm unfamiliar with this this pest. It, skeletonizes leaves, but it also will attack flower clusters and, and grape clusters in the early stages of development. Is that right? [00:07:34] Andrew Fles: Pretty much all green tissue. Yeah, a bunch of shoot, shoot tips leaves are probably, you know, their preferred source, I think, but anything tender. And so if, if the timing is just right where the, the inflorescences are, are you know, just coming out when the, when the beetles hatch, then they can really go for those cluster tips and, and shoot tips. [00:07:59] While we're scouting for this pest, we not only do the, you know, the density numbers and annotate that, but we look at, you know, how many are actually eating leaves versus shoot tips and clusters. [00:08:13] Craig Macmillan: Interesting, interesting. What is the design of your project and what varieties are we talking about? And what kind of variables are you measuring and how are you measuring them? [00:08:25] Andrew Fles: this is a farmer grant as opposed to a research grant. , it's tailored to folks that want to do on, on farm trials. And we want to do. Something in a significant enough volume, you know, that, that some that it would apply, it would be more applicable in the real world. [00:08:45] So for example you know, at a university they might do this randomized plots, you know, and they're using a backpack sprayer because they're, they're applying you know, three vines here, three vines there, scattered all throughout the block. And we wanted to use the sprayer that we actually use. [00:09:04] Um, and we wanted to do a bigger sections. And so what we did was we broke it up into two acre sections and we did two acres of both the traditional, the conventional program that we normally would do here and the soft treatment. So we did two acres of each in pinot noir, two acres of each in a, in a French American hybrid called ol, and then two acres of Riesling. [00:09:33] And we wanted to look at powdery, downy, botrytis, and sour rot. [00:09:38] In certain years, we can have quite a lot of botrytis and sour rot pressure in those three varieties. Because Pinot Noir of course is tight clustered. Vignole is even tighter clustered despite having that French American disease resistance package. It, it doesn't possess that for Botrytis or Sour Rot. [00:09:58] and then of course Riesling is a, is a very, it's probably the number one variety in Michigan. And as we all know, it's susceptible to Botrytis. [00:10:08] Craig Macmillan: Yeah. Big time. [00:10:10] Nice design. Great varieties to choose. I think that was really, really smart. How are you going to quantify these different variables? How are you going to measure the damage? [00:10:18] Andrew Fles: So for Powdery and Downey we just kind of did a scouting assessment. You know, how, prevalent is the infection based on how many leaves per, per per scouting event? I think off the top of my head, it was like 25 leaves. Per block that's more, I guess, anecdotal which we, and we did see that in the Pinot Noir, it was pretty clear cut that we struggled to control Downy in the soft treatment more so than in the conventional treatment. [00:10:50] It was, it was pretty clear there. And then as far as the Botrytis and Sour Rot, so that's really where the MSU team came in with the, the Rufus Isaacs lab and Dr. Rufus Isaacs and his master's PhD candidate. They did a lot of work there and, and then also the Tim Miles lab , so basically what they did is they took 25 clusters of each treatment and they did an assessment , for of course, how many berries were infected by, by botrytis and sour rot. [00:11:25] And then they also took those clusters and they hatched them out to see how many Drosophila species were there. [00:11:33] Craig Macmillan: Oh, okay. Yeah, good. That's interesting. [00:11:36] Andrew Fles: Wing drosophila here in Michigan and so really it was just the two species of traditional vinegar fly, drosophila, and then spotted wing. They did, you know, the, the statistics on that. [00:11:50] Craig Macmillan: interesting. And this is, this is a multi year project, right? [00:11:54] Andrew Fles: This was just one year. [00:11:56] Craig Macmillan: Just one year, okay. [00:11:58] And when will you have final results? [00:12:01] Andrew Fles: I have some of those already. We're going to do like a more formal presentation at a spring meeting here, a grower meeting, that's kind of co sponsored between MSU Extension and a local non profit that promotes grape and wine production in the area. So yeah, we're going to make a presentation in April on on the results and, and kind of, we're just continuing to, coalesce and, you know, tie my spray program with wedding events and then the results that they got as well. [00:12:37] Craig Macmillan: What other kinds of outreach are you doing? You're doing the meeting and you're doing other things? [00:12:41] Andrew Fles: I haven't discussed this with with Rika Bhandari as the PhD student. I suspect that she would use this in some of her publishing, you know, whether it gets published, I don't know, it's part of her Her main focus is sour rot, so this will be included in some of her presentations. [00:13:03] But I don't know that for a fact. [00:13:06] Craig Macmillan: That's exciting to get some information that's local. It's locally based and get it out to the local community as well as the broader community. I think that's really important if you don't mind I would like to get into some of the nuts and bolts of these two programs because I found that to be very interesting And then as we go talk about How that panned out for the different pests and diseases that you saw in these trials Let's talk about the soft program first You've got a dormant oil app in May and I assume you mean that there would be like JMS stylet oil or something like that [00:13:41] Andrew Fles: I think it was called bio cover. [00:13:43] Craig Macmillan: Bio cover and that's a pretty standard practice in your area I would guess [00:13:48] Andrew Fles: It is, yeah. [00:13:49] Craig Macmillan: and then the following month in June You, uh, have copper in the mix. In both the traditional and in the soft chemistry. I'm guessing that's also a common practice in your area. Probably for downy and for powdery. [00:14:06] Andrew Fles: Yeah, the copper is is something that we've been leaning towards and getting away from some of the synthetics. Which stick better to plant surfaces, we've been migrating that way anyway, these last numerous years now and so, yeah, , there are some similarities between the two programs at times it's really those key times of pre bloom and post bloom and variation that that we've traditionally. [00:14:34] Really locked in on some of the synthetic chemistries here [00:14:37] Craig Macmillan: And then also in June you have a Serenade Opti, which would be a Subtilis based material. And I believe that's also in your conventional in July. That's pretty standard practice, and that's an OMRI certified product, I believe. [00:14:52] Andrew Fles: Yes, yeah. [00:14:53] Craig Macmillan: There's some overlap there. It looks like the Rose Chaffer comes out around this time. [00:14:59] Andrew Fles: Yeah, probably it's not in front of me, but probably mid june [00:15:04] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, that's what you have here. In the traditional you've got a, a neonic, a sale. And then in the program, there's kind of a question mark here. What did you end up using in the, in the soft program for a roast chaffer? [00:15:19] Andrew Fles: Let me find it here [00:15:21] So we used neemix 4. 5 [00:15:26] Craig Macmillan: Nemix. I'm not familiar with that. Is that a Nemo based product? [00:15:28] Andrew Fles: Yeah, it's a neem oil [00:15:30] Craig Macmillan: And then in the traditional you have a neonic, a sail. Did you see a difference in Rose Chapter damage between the two? Because this is a pretty big difference here. [00:15:39] Andrew Fles: a pretty big difference in terms of [00:15:42] Craig Macmillan: Well, the modes of action obviously are very different. [00:15:45] Andrew Fles: Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, we had a little higher a little higher prevalence of rose chafers in mostly in the Pinot Noir treatments. Not so much in the Riesling, and I think that's largely because of black location. Traditionally the Pinot Noir block is our worst, one of our worst blocks in terms of rose chaffer rose chaffers are these beetles. [00:16:09] Of course, they're very similar to Japanese beetles for those listeners that, that may know that, but they really thrive in sandy soil, which is what we specialize here in northern Michigan, sandy based soil, right? [00:16:22] , and especially in un mowed fields. Right? We've really been trying to manage , our headland spaces like a prairie even more so upon joining SIP and, and learning more about making a comprehensive farm plan of, Of all of the land, right? And so we've really managed our, headlands and open fields like prairies which means minimal mowing, [00:16:47] like once a year is what we, we just mow to keep the autumn olive out. And and so we're trying to promote, you know, bird life and, and. All forms of life in these fields, which includes and sometimes an increase in rose chafers. [00:17:03] However, this 2024 was, was a. Fairly low pressure year. [00:17:09] And so I was very comfortable with, with sticking with this the soft insecticide. And we didn't feel like, you know, even though we saw this, this increase in pressure in the soft treatment, it wasn't surpassing the economic damage threshold that we are really keen. [00:17:27] And right. IPM [00:17:29] Craig Macmillan: So, true IPM. [00:17:31] Andrew Fles: IPM is very important, here, you know, where we have all these insects and it rains a lot and, you know, you got to really. Be ready to to, to scout and then react. [00:17:41] Craig Macmillan: Exactly. Yeah. And knowing what your economic injury limit is, I think it's huge. And your action threshold based on that. Tell me a little bit about the Spinosad based products. You have a couple in the soft that I assume are meant to be insecticides. [00:17:55] Andrew Fles: Yeah. The delegate. Yup. [00:17:56] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, Delegator and Trust. [00:17:59] Andrew Fles: I'll talk a little bit about intrepid as well. That's probably a foreign thing for any, any West coast listener, but that's intrepid is a it's a molting regulator and it's essentially for, in this case, for grapes, it's for grape berry moth. And this is an insect that is very difficult to do IPM on because there's a, there's kind of a morph that lives in northern Michigan that doesn't Go for the traps and so you can put traps out and it you just have no idea what's going on Because they just don't really care for the pheromones so they're really almost impossible to trap and I've talked numerous time with dr Rufus Isaacs about this and how do we you know get a handle on populations and you know They just can't get their traps to work up here. [00:18:50] We target with the intrepid, it's a, again, it's a molting regulator, so it just prevents them from developing, and it's very specific it's not a broad spectrum, so that goes on as a preventative where we have blocks near the woods, [00:19:05] because we see great berry moth coming in from wild, wild vines [00:19:10] that may or may not be in the woods, but we Where we see larva hatching is, is just kind of a perimeter. [00:19:16] So what we'll actually do is a perimeter spray. We don't even spray the whole block. We'll spray the outside row or two or three of each end. And then we just kind of blast it in. Along the, the other, you know, along the posts, the end posts. And that seems to work fairly well. [00:19:34] Craig Macmillan: Huh. [00:19:35] Andrew Fles: And then, as far as Delegate goes and Entrust those are Spinoza based products like you mentioned. [00:19:42] Those are primarily, you'll see that we put them on, well, I don't know if you can see timing, but we put them on. in September. Yeah, at the end of the season. September. [00:19:53] Yeah. Yeah. So, so those go on right around or right before even version and that is for drosophila [00:20:01] I think there's been some research recently from Cornell and then also Brock University in Canada. And I know also that Tim and Rufus have been doing trials here in Michigan as well. between the three of us out here in the, in the Northeast we're very focused on sour rot. [00:20:19] And so Michigan State along with these other folks have done these trials where they found that including an insecticide at veraison or, and then also at about 15 bricks significantly reduces sour rot infections. And that's because you're going after one of the vectors. [00:20:39] Craig Macmillan: Interesting. There's another material that I wasn't familiar with. I did a little bit of research on it. That's a product called Jet Ag, which is a hydrogen peroxide, a peracetic acid material. You have that in both the soft chemistry and your quote unquote conventional section. Is that a material you've used for a long time? [00:20:57] Andrew Fles: Yeah, we, I forget when exactly it started coming around I think probably 2015, 16 is when it was maybe released or made its way to northern Michigan and kind of coincided with with some sour rot. Issues that we have had off and on over the years with Pinot Noir or Vignole. And it's a, you know, it's a strong hydrogen peroxide. [00:21:23] It's a heavy oxidizer. It goes in and it, it, it cleans everything up. You know, it disinfects. And there's, there's some thinking as well that it, it'll kill the yeast. And some of those yeasts, the aroma is very attractive to spotted wing drosophila and regular drosophila. And so if you're, if you're kind of this is probably something that, that people, you know, that rely on native ferments might not want to hear, but you know, it really, it really disinfects the fruit which, which is key for You know, controlling sour rot. [00:21:59] And so we've used that over the years as both a preventative and a curative treatment. [00:22:05] Craig Macmillan: Right. [00:22:06] Andrew Fles: I didn't actually end up using it this year because It essentially stopped raining it was almost west coast ian here in the fall. It stopped raining in August and it didn't rain again. [00:22:19] You know, I mean, aside from like just a, you know, very, very light mist that wouldn't even penetrate the soil deeper than a centimeter. You know, so we didn't get any appreciable rain. From, I think it was maybe August 5 or 10, all the way till November 31st, or sorry, October 31st. [00:22:39] Craig Macmillan: Actually, that raises a good question. So, what is the summer precipitation like, quote unquote, in a normal year or an average year? [00:22:48] Andrew Fles: Yeah, we've been having, [00:22:49] Craig Macmillan: is it? [00:22:52] Andrew Fles: it's so variable is the, you know, we keep coming back to that. Every season is different here and it's so true even in Northern Michigan we have seen climate change affecting our summer rainfalls. So, whereas, you know, traditionally, and I say traditionally as maybe like the 80s and 90s maybe even early 2000s, you would expect to see, you know, a good four to eight inches a month. [00:23:20] you know, less, less so in, you know, in July and August is walking that more like four inch. Four inches of precipitation and you can get that sometimes in two different days [00:23:33] Craig Macmillan: Wow. [00:23:34] Andrew Fles: And that could be all or it could be spread out, you know over over several 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 different events. we had a dry June a couple years ago, I think we, I think it rained two days and amount to much. [00:23:50] And 2023, all of May we had, it rained one day. It was very dry. And so it's really been a roller coaster here in terms of what to expect as far as precipitation comes, I mean during the growing season anyway. [00:24:08] Craig Macmillan: Mm hmm. [00:24:09] Andrew Fles: It's been a challenge to know, you kind of have to have all these tools ready, right? [00:24:13] You have to have your jet ag ready. [00:24:15] If you get a bunch of infections going you got to have some of these other products ready and just , be ready for anything essentially. [00:24:24] Craig Macmillan: That, I'm just kind of reeling, I'm from California, and so like four to eight inches of rain during the growing season, it sounds like a fungal disease disaster to me. I'm impressed that you can get a crop, a vinifera crop to, to harvest with those kind of conditions. [00:24:39] Let's talk about the sustainable conventional program a little bit. Again copper appears early which would make sense. Then the insecticide portion would be a sale. It's a neonicotinoid, and then you've got a couple of fungicides in here. [00:24:55] You've got sulfur, and you've got a boscalid. Then in July again you've got a subtilis, that's serenadopty, and the, the intrepid, the IGR. August, you've got another neonic rally, and then you've got a product called ranman, or ranman. Which is a Sazofenamide, again, traditional fungicide. And then Inspire Supert, verasion, very common. And then you've got the the JetAg and Delegate, which is an antispinosid based product. When I look at this, I see a lot of very safe, very smart, very rotated fungicide chemistries here. Was this the kind of program you were using previously? [00:25:34] Andrew Fles: Yeah. And you know, it always can change a little bit. Sometimes you can't get a certain product or you can't get it in time. [00:25:42] Uh, whereas, you know, you, you're planning to use X product for your, for your kind of like You know, your, your pea sized berry spray, let's say but you, all of a sudden you have a bunch of rainfall, you know, and, and so if I was planning to use Quintech, which only covers powdery all of a sudden I have this big wedding event that was just perfect for growing downy mildew I I might switch from Quintech to and vice versa, you know, if we're, if we're into some weather, that's really favorable, it's time to push more of those serenades and you know, we've used some of the other biologicals over the years as well and, and just trying, trying to go that way as much as possible, but, you know, sometimes the weather forces your hand, like, like it did this year, you'll see in my, In my program we went into some Randman and some [00:26:35] Zampro, and those are those are very specific to to downy mildew. [00:26:41] You know, but we're still, with those products, you know, they're more expensive than something like Kaptan, you know. We Can't spray that with sip and we didn't spray it before because we don't want it on our fingers [00:26:56] The vineyard you and I don't want it in our lives So so we're always trying to go the ran man route, even though it's a little pricier, but it's very Target specific for Downey and so, you know with all the rains that we had in June and July and early July we felt like the smart play and we did start seeing some downy mildew cropping up much earlier than normal. [00:27:21] If, if we see it at all, that is. in that, at that point you want to make the call, you know, Hey, I want to get out in front of this thing. I don't want downy on my fruit. You know, if you start seeing it on growing tips, I think it was the 4th of July or the 2nd of July or something we were scouting and we were getting a lot of rain at that point and it was very humid and it was just like rain every other day for about a week there and it's like you gotta pivot and, and make the move to something that's really going to provide. control there. [00:27:52] For the soft program at that point, we were trying to use, I believe we use serenade, you know, which is more broad spectrum as far as biologicals go. We knew we wanted to keep it going after the, , the Downey with the soft chemistry. And that's why we got into the orange oil as well. [00:28:10] Craig Macmillan: Oh, interesting. [00:28:11] Andrew Fles: to, Yeah, that's, that wasn't in the proposal that I sent you, but we did pivot. I couldn't get. The cinerate it was, I was told it was on the West coast, growers were hoarding it and none of it, none of it made it over this way. I was really hoping to get my hands on some of it. [00:28:28] I've already pre ordered my 2025 cinerate. [00:28:32] Craig Macmillan: And Cinerate is a cinnamon oil based product, right? [00:28:36] Andrew Fles: Correct. Yeah. Cinnamon oil. oil. Yeah, it's another oil. [00:28:39] Yeah. Yeah. It's another one of those kind of antimicrobial oils, if you will. Um, So we pivoted to, to orange oil and thyme oil. TimeGuard has been, is a product that's been out for a number of years now. We've used it before, , we haven't really relied on it as much in the past. As, as we did with this soft treatment. [00:28:59] Craig Macmillan: Tell me a little bit more about what the outcomes have been at this point. We talked about the the pinot noir a little bit. We talked about the Rose Shafter showing up there a little bit more. At, at the end of the day, the end of the season. How did you feel about it? How did you feel about comparing the two [00:29:15] Andrew Fles: you know, it felt, it felt really good. It seemed like the soft program kept pace with the conventional for the most part. In the Pinot Noir, we had we had some more rose chaffer damage, of course, but without doing a, a full on research trial, it's hard to say that it was the treatment alone because of, as I mentioned, the location was a big factor. [00:29:38] With the downy mildew, it seemed to be a little more prevalent, certainly in the Pinot Noir on the, on the soft program that is but it never got to the point and I was, I was always ready to go in with whatever I needed to, because we don't want to have a defoliation and not being able to ripen fruit, you know, the fruit and, and especially in such a great growing year. [00:30:01] we never really resorted to. You know, breaking the glass and, and grabbing the ax and running out there and like, and it was emergency, you know, we never, we never had to do that. There was a moment there in July where, you know, where would the downy pressure we thought maybe. [00:30:19] Maybe we would have to abandon it, but then things dried up and we kept after things with with some of these, these things like thyme oil and orange oil. Getting good coverage with them is so important. But getting those on at the right time really seemed to provide enough control. [00:30:37] Craig Macmillan: Actually that's a, that's an excellent point. Let's talk about the phenology a little bit. How, for the varieties that you're growing, how big are these canopies getting? What's the spacing that they're planted on? How many gallons per acre are you using in your spray applications to get good coverage? [00:30:54] Andrew Fles: Yeah, so for the purpose of the project I stuck with 50 gallons an acre throughout the season. Which even, even for the conventional portion, traditionally I'll, I'll start with 30 gallons an acre aside from the dormant spray, of course, but like, you know, early season sprays until the canopy becomes a little denser, , I'll be at 30 gallons an acre and then probably mid July post bloom, right around bloom, perhaps , we'll ramp up the conventional to 50 gallons as well. [00:31:26] For the purposes of this, we just did 50 gallons across the board, both treatments. a lot of the canopy is well, it's really all VSP except for the vignole. Vignole is high wire cordone. And then we're talking nine by five spacing. The vinifera as well, which is pretty common around here. Double geo some spur pruning. We've really developed a kind of a hybrid system where we do a little bit of, we kind of mix cane and spur , , and alternate those in, in some of our venefera programs. [00:31:57] Craig Macmillan: And in, on the same plant? [00:31:59] Andrew Fles: Yeah. Sometimes. [00:32:01] Yeah. [00:32:01] Craig Macmillan: one side, gator the other. [00:32:03] Andrew Fles: What that does for us you know, where we get. Or we can at least, you know, and we can, sometimes we can lose a whole cane , or a lot of buds. I don't want to get too in the weeds on, on what that system is, but, but it's really developed around being able to quickly replace and adapt to cold damage. [00:32:24] And so if we need to go in and cut a trunk out, we've already got a cane growing from down low, if that makes any sense. [00:32:31] Craig Macmillan: No, that does make sense. And it's a practice that I'm familiar with from other areas in the Midwest, the North, the Northeast. Very, very smart. But that's a very different canopy architecture than you might find someplace that's all VSP. Or, you know, a double canopy situation maybe like in New York. [00:32:48] How comfortable are you now? After going through this, it sounds like you liked the softer program, you feel you got good control on most things. But if I'm understanding you correctly, you're not afraid to keep some other, other tools in the toolbox, basically. [00:33:05] Andrew Fles: Right. Yeah. And I think a big purpose of this program was to investigate some of these products. I want to highlight Problad Verde as well. [00:33:14] That's. Another one that's been out there and we've used it before as well. You know, I did a trial with Tim Miles's lab on and Rufus doing a sour rot trial in Pinot Noir in the past with pro, and it was just kind of a end of the season application of Problad with I believe we use delegate or in trust. [00:33:34] I can't remember. One of them and, this project, the SARE project was really looking at problad as being more of the backbone , of it. And, and so we ended up using that for the soft treatment pre bloom, post bloom. And then again, at version, because it has similar to jet egg, it's kind of a disinfectant, right? [00:33:57] It's this lupine seed extract that, that is a. That is a disinfectant and so it's going to go in, but because it, it's advertised anyway as having some systemic activity, [00:34:09] Craig Macmillan: Mm [00:34:10] Andrew Fles: systemic properties, that's, that's key for us in the east here. Because, hey, if we get a half inch of rain, well, it's still kind of in the leaf or it's still in some of that green flower tissue. [00:34:24] Before it opens up and blooms and so, really working problad in as instead of a kind of just end of the season toy it's really became, became the backbone of the tritus control for us in this, in this trial. And then again, looking at some of these oils, I think there's a lot of promise for. the orange oil in particular, I've, I've been seeing more and more research coming out about how you know, it does work on Downy and we did see that you know, even though we had an increase in Downy infection man, it could have been a lot worse. It was still at an acceptable level. [00:35:02] And so I think, I think I'm going to feel more and more comfortable using those products. [00:35:07] Craig Macmillan: You've demonstrated to yourself. And that's what the, that's how it works, and that's what everybody needs, to have some confidence. Which I think is really great, I was very impressed by the idea of trying things that maybe are not widely used, were not widely tested outside of maybe the West Coast, and to be able to show efficacy on your property, I think is really important. [00:35:27] I think it's one thing many of us have learned about softer materials. They may or may not work depending on what your pressure is. And that can vary region to region, but it can also vary within a region. It definitely can vary year to year, so having that flexibility that you've built into this program is very admirable. What would you say are the big picture benefits of the soft pesticide program at this point? [00:35:48] Andrew Fles: Hopefully just to increase awareness of, of how they can be effective for folks here in Michigan or, or similar climates, New York and Canada, I should say I don't think , this SARE project alone is, is going to be any sort of groundbreaking news, but I think it's just another verification and if we start to have more and more of them people will believe more and more in these products because it's just, it's at that point, it's word of mouth, right? [00:36:21] It's more and more growers are starting to back it. And, or experiment with it at least and, and see results, I think a lot of growers are very word of mouth oriented anyway. [00:36:34] So, uh, so it's very important, like, Oh, Hey, what did you try last year? And I think there's plenty of that going on in our area. [00:36:42] A bunch of us anyway, we seem to network pretty well and, and trust each other. , Oh, I use this at this key time and it really proved effective. So I think just bringing more and more awareness to these soft programs or these soft products, I should say. , and I can't really speak to the sustainability of. Farming lupin seed for for a fungicide product, you know, I can't, speak to that, but I want to believe that it's, it's a more sustainable product than, you know something that was made in a factory and, and might have petrochemicals in it. [00:37:19] Craig Macmillan: Well, it might have resistance issues as well, I think is one of the key things. And by the way, both programs I thought were very intelligent. I think like in terms of the frack rotations in the sustainable one, I thought that was really well done. Is, is there one thing that you would tell growers? [00:37:35] What's the one takeaway you would tell people from this project? You just kind of touched on one, but is there a message here for people? [00:37:43] Andrew Fles: I think the message is, you know, that we have to be really careful in crafting our. Spray program to the season that we have. If we were getting A lot more rain in September than what we ended up having I mean, we were, we were in pretty severe drought here. I think the soft program could still work. [00:38:03] But you have to choose the product and probably apply it much more frequently. You know, you have to go in and respond to those rains. , or even maybe perhaps be ready to pivot to something that is synthetic and systemic and curative. You know, maybe you have to go in with a hammer, but that doesn't mean that, you know, the majority of this growing season can't be done in a very soft way. [00:38:30] And so we're really just responding to that weather. But I think if this is our focus , to use these softer chemistries on things that we're going to drink or eat, even if it's vegetables, I think that these products are becoming better and better and there's becoming more and more of them, which is really encouraging to see you know, 10 years ago, maybe we had serenade and And you know, a couple of other products, but now, now there's, they're really becoming prevalent. [00:38:58] And so I think the take home is, is crafting that spray program with these new found tools that we have. Problads, , your crop, , your what, what should I call them? Like your aromatic oils, lack of better term, like orange oil, thyme oil, cinnamon oil. You know, I think these things do have a place. [00:39:17] Craig Macmillan: Where can people find out more about you? [00:39:19] Andrew Fles: Well, they can visit ShadyLaneCellers. com and there's stuff in there about our farm and in what we do and where we are, who we are a little bit. And then also there will be, and I could get you this information if you're interested, so this spring meeting where we're going to present the results of this believe we'll have a Zoom link option. [00:39:43] Craig Macmillan: As a reference date, this is being recorded in February of 2025. And so spring meeting will be coming up in a few months from here. I'm not sure when this will air, but even anything is fantastic. So I really want to thank you for being on the episode. Our guest today was Andy Fless, he's Vineyard Manager at Shadyland Cellars and you've been a great guest. Hey, thanks for being on the podcast. [00:40:03] Andrew Fles: My pleasure, Craig. Thanks a lot for having me. [00:40:08] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. Today's podcast was brought to you by Martinez Orchards. Martinez Orchards is one of the most trusted and respected names in the nursery business. They have earned that reputation through years of hard work, honesty, integrity, and a commitment to their customers. They provide support with their knowledgeable salespeople and highly experienced production team. They know successful plantings allow them to fulfill their promises, and they strive to build lasting relationships with their customers based on a foundation of mutual steadfast trust. [00:40:40] Make sure you check out the show notes for links to Andy at Shady Lane Plus. Sustainable wine Growing podcast episodes 117. Grapevine Mildew Control with UV Light 219 Intelligent sprayers to improve fungicide applications and save money. And 235, battling fungicide resistance with glove sampling. [00:41:03] If you liked this show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend, subscribing and leaving us a review. You can find all of the podcasts@vineyardteam.org slash podcast and you can reach us at podcast@vineyardteam.org. [00:41:16] Until next time, this is Sustainable Wine Growing with the Vineyard team.   Nearly perfect transcription by Descript

Christian Dwiggins, co-founder and co-CEO of Rayse, articulates a transformative vision for the real estate industry, focusing on the imperative of enhancing agent-client relationships through innovative technology. The primary salient point of our discussion centers on Rayse's pioneering buyer presentation tool, which seeks to empower agents by providing them with a rich, interactive platform that showcases their value and expertise. Dwiggins emphasizes the necessity for agents to convey their worth effectively in a rapidly evolving market, particularly in light of recent legal changes affecting commission structures. Throughout the episode, he reflects on his multifaceted background, including his experiences in the military and the audio engineering industry, which have shaped his approach to leadership and collaboration. We explore the overarching theme that successful real estate practices hinge not solely on transactions but on fostering trust and connection between agents and their clients.The conversation with Christian delves deeply into the intricacies of the real estate industry and the innovative solutions his company is providing. Dwiggins recounts his upbringing in San Luis Obispo, sharing how his formative years spent with his influential grandfather shaped his critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. He discusses his transition from a background in audio engineering and the military to the realm of real estate technology, emphasizing the importance of interpersonal relationships and the trust that agents must cultivate with their clients. Throughout the episode, he articulates how Rayse is redefining the buyer experience with a nonlinear, interactive presentation platform that empowers agents to showcase their unique value propositions effectively and efficiently. Dwiggins also reflects on the current challenges facing real estate agents, particularly in light of recent lawsuits affecting commission structures, and how Raise aims to position agents as trusted advisors in a rapidly changing landscape.Takeaways: The product strategy for Rayse was deliberately crafted to address the evolving needs of real estate agents. Christian Dwiggins shared insights on how the platform empowers agents to articulate their value to clients effectively. The discussion highlighted the importance of building trust between agents and clients in the real estate industry. Dwiggins emphasized that agents must navigate a complex landscape of client expectations and market dynamics to succeed. Rayse's innovative approach includes a nonlinear buyer presentation that adapts to various client relationships. The company aims to leverage AI technology to enhance agent-client interactions while maintaining the personal touch essential for trust.

“We're giving [companies] the avenue to take something that historically has been an inconvenience and turn that into an opportunity to make them some money, whether that be selling energy to the grid, or putting energy back into the operations of their facilities. So, what could have cost them money in the past can now be a huge benefit. At the same time, you're doing something great for the world and our future.” Autumn Huskins on Electric Ladies Podcast Addressing climate change presents two big questions: How do we reduce waste and keep it out of landfills, and how can we power our electricity-dependent economy without exacerbating climate change? An innovative waste-to-energy technology in San Luis Obispo, California is diverting waste from landfills, creating exciting new revenue streams – and even helping make wine! Listen to Autumn Hustins, Finance Director at Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI), as she explores a renewable energy source that is providing clean power to ~600,000 homes and businesses in the local economy, with plans to grow. You'll hear about: How Hitachi Zosen Inova's waste-to-energy plant is converting agricultural and food waste into electricity for the local grid. New revenue streams that waste-to-energy innovations create for business and local communities. Impact of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) on the adoption of waste-to-energy projects. How the green energy transition is creating new jobs in places previously reliant on fossil fuels. Plus, the secret to a great career is surprisingly simple. "You go to work every day in the job that you're in. You do your absolute best. You give your all to that particular position, and the positions will follow. I don't care what your role is. I don't care if you're the janitor or the CEO, I think you approach the job the same way and do the best that you can possibly do, and it'll work out.” Autumn Huskins on Electric Ladies Podcast Read Joan's Forbes articles here. You'll also like: ICWS Webinar, Joan Michelson moderates an enlightening webinar with top leaders on The Future of the Energy Transition and the Grid. Gauri Singh, Deputy Director General of the International Renewable Energy Agency, on the deployment of clean energy around the world. Björk Kristjánsdóttir, COO/CFO of Carbon Recycling International, on turning CO2 into valuable products. Bethia Burke, President of The Fund For Our Economic Future, on the impact of green jobs on local economies. Vanessa Chan, former Chief Commercialization Officer of the Department of Energy, on funding the transition to clean energy. More from Electric Ladies Podcast!  Join us at The Earth Day Women's Summit on April 22, 2025, in Dallas, Texas! Register today with the code “EDWS” for the Women's Summit and a special rate. Elevate your career with expert coaching and ESG advisory with Electric Ladies Podcast. Unlock new opportunities, gain confidence, and achieve your career goals with the right guidance. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive our podcasts, articles, events and career advice – and special coaching offers. Thanks for subscribing on Apple Podcasts or iHeartRadio and leaving us a review! Don't forget to follow us on our socials Twitter: @joanmichelson LinkedIn: Electric Ladies Podcast with Joan Michelson Twitter: @joanmichelson Facebook: Green Connections Radio

“If there are kids in high school that are showing an interest, or a passion, or want to try something, we absolutely do not want literacy barriers, financial barriers to be an issue. So, we want to be able to be there to assist and make sure they get those opportunities.” Lindsey Haring & Celia Uribe are a partner and board member of PEAK. In this episode, Lindsey and Celia chat with Luis about San Luis Obispo, best places to hike there, PEAK or Promoting Extracurricular Activities for Kids, history and mission of PEAK, how to submit your hike so money will be donated, the importance of PEAK, Peaks for PEAK fundraiser, volunteers, and The Mountain Air store. PEAK's mission is to enable all TK-12 students in San Luis Obispo to participate in extracurricular activities. A volunteer-run nonprofit organization, PEAK uses 100% of its proceeds to pay tuition, purchase equipment or clothing, and reimburse expenses. PEAK is a 501(c)(3) organization, so all donations are tax deductible. PEAK welcomes donations of all kinds: financial, equipment, and volunteer time. Consider making a donation today! Support Road Dog Podcast by: 1. Joining the Patreon Community: https://www.patreon.com/roaddogpodcast 2. Subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you listen on. Submit your hike here: https://themountainair.com GO SLEEVES: https://gokinesiologysleeves.com HAMMER NUTRITION show code: Roaddoghn20 Listeners get a special 15% off at https://www.hammernutrition.com DRYMAX show code: Roaddog2020  Listeners get a special 15% off at https://www.drymaxsports.com/products/ LUNA Sandals “Whether I'm hitting the trails or just hanging out, LUNA Sandals are my favorite. They're designed by Barefoot Ted of Born to Run and made for every adventure—ultra running, hiking, or just kicking back. Its minimalist footwear that's good for your feet!” Check them out and get 15% off at lunasandals.com/allwedoisrun Allwedoisrun.com Lindsey Haring Contact Info: https://themountainair.com PEAK: https://peakslo.org Luis Escobar (Host) Contact: luis@roaddogpodcast.com Luis Instagram Kevin Lyons (Producer) Contact: kevin@roaddogpodcast.com yesandvideo.com Music: Slow Burn by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Original RDP Photo: Photography by Kaori Peters kaoriphoto.com Road Dog Podcast Adventure With Luis Escobar www.roaddogpodcast.com

Cal Poly just had its swimming & diving program cut. No other sport at the school was cut. The school president says it will take $25 million to reinstate the program. Current Cal Poly swimmers Jen Reiter and Sabrina Bell joined us to share about the situation they find themselves in, how it came to this, and to ask for help. While scholarships across the nation are being slashed, cutting entire programs is not what the sport needs. Plus, San Luis Obispo is awesome. The facilities are great (2x 50m pools). The team had a good year under interim staff. Would be a real shame to lose this one. The SaveCPSwimdive campaign has begun fundraising and this is the gofundme link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-cal-poly-swim-dive Enjoy and don't forget to subscribe for weekly podcasts and daily shorts!

Diane Vonglis Parnell joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up with 9 siblings on an isolated farm under the tyranny of her abusive father and living in constant fear, homing in on the story we are called to tell, steering clear of portraying ourselves as victim or hero, not having closure, yearning for a mother, emotional absence, self-nurturing, trusting readers, the toll of secrets, changing names of family members, sharing manuscripts with siblings, writing about abusers, taking power back, and her new memoir The Taste of Anger.   Also in this episode: -the importance of therapy to memoirists -opting for a child narrator -writing about emotional neglect and depression   Books mentioned in this episode: The Liar's Club by Mary Karr The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealey Creep by Myriam Gurba   Diane Vonglis Parnell grew up on a remote farm in Western New York with nine siblings. Her essay Blame the Milkman was a winner in the Fish Publishing short memoir contest, and included in the Fish Anthology 2022. Vonglis Parnell is a Scrabble enthusiast, and a lover of progressive rock music. She serves as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) volunteer for abused children in her community, and lives a minimalist's life in a 200-square-foot cottage in San Luis Obispo, California.  Connect with Diane: Facebook.com/dianevonglisparnell Instagram: @dianevonglisparnell – Ronit's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer's Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.  She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book. More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Subscribe to Ronit's Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Follow Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social   Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

If you've lived in San Luis Obispo long enough, you know wildfires are part of life here—and today, we're tackling that head-on with Fire Chief Todd Tuggle. He has decades of leadership from Fresno to Santa Maria, and now his SLOCOMING, bringing serious know-how to the table. We're diving into the biggest fire risks for homeowners, how to build a defensible space that could save your property, and what to do when that evacuation order hits—because timing can be everything. Plus, we've got the fun stuff too—local insights and how we as a community can be better prepared. These tips that might just save your home one day!" Now your host James Bueno. Have your question featured on an episode of the SLO County Real Estate Podcast by texting it to 805-244-1170 or if you'd like to have a conversation with the team about your unique situation call team Sweasey at 805-781-3750 and you can always email Hal at Hal@teamsweasey.com for any questions you might have about real estate CA DRE #01111911 #SanLuisObispo #RealEstatePodcast #FireSafety #HalSweasey #SLOfiredepartment #WildfirePrevention #CaliforniaFires

It's Episode 422 and we've been Zorg blasted by Zenon. This week Em finishes out Part 2 on The Cage of St Osyth and it's terrifying paranormal happenings. Then Christine covers the haunting case of Alicia Kozakiewicz, the first widely reported Internet-related child abduction. And we'll catch you next time astral projecting from our dreams… and that's why we drink! P.S. We promise Billie-Jo Jenkins Pt. 2 will be coming soon so stay tuned! For a list of resources or ways to help those affected by the fires in Los Angeles visit: bit.ly/atwwdfirehelp ! The Pour Decisions Tour is back on the road! Catch us this month in Monterey and San Luis Obispo, California! Get your tickets today at andthatswhywedrink.com/live ! ______________________ If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at MINTMOBILE.com/atwwd. DISCLAIMER: Upfront payment of $45 for 3-month 5-gigabyte plan required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customer offer for the first 3 months only, then full-price plan options available. Taxes & fees extra. See MINT MOBILE for details. Stop putting off those doctor appointments and go to Zocdoc.com/DRINK to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. Start your hair growth journey with Nutrafol. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners ten dollars off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code DRINK. You're going to love Hungryroot as much as we do. Take advantage of this exclusive offer: For a limited time get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to Hungryroot.com/drink and use code drink. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eric Czaja, a US Army Special Forces Major leads Monterey, California's Naval Postgraduate School's Regenerative Grazing Open Air Lab on 2,500 acres at Camp San Luis Obispo, CA.

Welcome to Episode 421 where all roads lead to the Em-pire. This week we're headed to England! First for Em's part 1 on The Cage of St Osyth, a former prison/holding place for many accused of witchcraft in the 1580s. Then Christine kicks of her two-parter on the tragic story of Billie-Jo Jenkins which will have some major plot twists next week! And remember, to be known is to be loved… and that's why we drink! For a list of resources or ways to help those affected by the fires in Los Angeles visit: bit.ly/atwwdfirehelp ! The Pour Decisions Tour is back on the road! Catch us this month in Monterey and San Luis Obispo, California! Get your tickets today at andthatswhywedrink.com/live ! ______________________ For 30% off your order, head to Orgain.com/DRINK and use code DRINK Get the right life insurance for YOU, for LESS, at SELECTQUOTE.com/DRINK Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com/drink today. You've got to try GOODLES mac & cheese, and don't forget their nutrient-packed pasta too! Pick some up when you're out shopping... GOODLES is available nationwide at major grocery stores, Target, and Walmart. We know you're going to LOVE GOODLES as much as we do! Take the online quiz and introduce Ollie to your pet. Visit https://ollie.com/DRINK today for 60% off your first box of meals! #ToKnowThemIsToLoveThem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get ready to boogie into March with us while we read you a selection of ghostly Listener Stories. From a haunted home built by a criminal, to a dog loving poltergeist, a prankster ghost and some not so friendly/friendly cemetery ghosts, this episode has it all! And we hope the leprechauns bring you all a lucky month filled with positivity... and that's why we drink!For a list of resources or ways to help those affected by the fires in Los Angeles visit: https://bit.ly/atwwdfirehelp ! The Pour Decisions Tour is back on the road! Catch us this month in Monterey and San Luis Obispo, California! Get your tickets today at https://www.andthatswhywedrink.com/live ______________________ Make progress towards a better financial future with Chime. Open your account in 2 minutes at chime.com/DRINK. Banking services and debit card provided by The Bancorp Bank, N.A. or Stride Bank, N.A.; Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe® and are subject to monthly limits. Timing depends on submission of payment file. Fees apply at out-of-network ATMs. Get the right life insurance for YOU, for LESS, at SELECTQUOTE.COM/DRINK Get 15% off OneSkin with the code DRINK at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod Get better sleep, hair and skin with Blissy and use DRINKPOD to get an additional 30% off atblissy.com/DRINKPOD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bennett Geil joins Electric People in this episode with host Ty Williams. Bennett is one of the top performers in The Street and shares his process and standards that have led him there. He talks with Ty about his experiences leading, selling, and recruiting in the San Luis Obispo office.

So Strickland's going to Vegas this weekend? Maybe I should drive out there and surprise him. Better yet, YOU should get out there and surprise him! Seriously, I'll obligate him to buy you a drink if you are in Vegas this weekend, he's staying downtown off of Fremont St. Not a little drink either, one of those yard-long touristy frozen drinks where you're not sure if you'll get alcohol poisoning or diabetes first. Reach out in the FB group (www.niceshortcut.com) and tag him. If he's not looking at FB, someone else in the group will buzz him, you should totally do this, he would love the attention. And you should check out San Luis Obispo, CA, here are some links: https://jockossteakhouse.com/dinner/ https://www.madonnainn.com/viewroomsDo you want some cool merch? Check out the store here- https://www.niceguysonbusiness.com/merch Leave a voicemail for the Nice Guys: 424-2DJ-DOUG - (424) 235-3684Need help podcasting? www.TurnkeyPodcast.comJoin our Nice Guys Community. www.NiceShortCut.com No time to get to this, but you can read the blog here: 12 Worries Every Entrepreneur Has (or they are lying) Show notes written lovingly by the most anonymous man (or woman) in the world. Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

The battle of good versus evil: how can we be sure we're on the right side? In today's episode, we speak with someone who has witnessed evil take hold of people — and fought to drive it out. What kind of person dares to confront such powerful forces head-on? One of these rare and fearless individuals is Father John Farao, a renowned exorcist from the Diocese of Monterey… For over 14 years, Fr. Farao has served as the Catholic Chaplain at California Men's Colony, a state prison in San Luis Obispo that houses 4,000 men. Renowned for his deep knowledge and spiritual insight into the demonic, he is dedicated to clarifying and demystifying the teachings of the Catholic Church. Click play to dive into: How Fr. Farao got involved in the prison ministry.  What it's like to watch God work in the lives of inherently troubled people.  The impact of faith on inmates. The most difficult types of trauma to overcome.  Exorcism remains one of the most mysterious, misunderstood, and sensationalized practices in Christianity. What can Fr. Farao's experience tell us about the realities of this chilling subject? Join us now to find out for yourself! Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9C Upgrade Your Wallet Game with Ekster!  Get the sleek, smart wallet you deserve—and save while you're at it! Use coupon code FINDINGGENIUS at checkout or shop now with this exclusive link: ekster.com?sca_ref=4822922.DtoeXHFUmQ5  Smarter, slimmer, better. Don't miss out!