Heidi: Okay. Kevin, I'm so thrilled to have you on the Fluent in Floridian podcast. Welcome to our show.

Kevin: Thank you for having me, Heidi. I appreciate it.

Heidi: So let's start from the beginning and kind of tell me how did you make your way to Florida?

Kevin: I made a wrong turn somewhere. No. I had, for years I had worked in the federal government on something called Manufacturing Extension Partnership program, which created centers around the country that help manufacturers adopt new or more advanced manufacturing methods and technologies. And I did that all the way through 2005. And then for a period of about 10 years after that, I was a consultant, and the last consulting job I had was, could you come down to Florida and help us set up one of those centers in Florida? So technically I was only supposed to be helping them write a proposal. Somewhere along the way I got recruited or I recruited myself. I'm not sure. I started getting really excited about what we were putting together and what the possibilities were, and I thought this could be an interesting turn. And so I said that was my last consulting job. I left and came to start up FloridaMakes in 2015, and I've been here ever since.

Heidi: Yeah, and I would love for you to kind of just provide some context because I know that a lot of our viewers and listeners know the term manufacturing, right, but kind of explain what is it? I mean, just in the high-level sense of what is manufacturing?

Kevin: That's a great question. There's ways that it's defined technically, if you're familiar with the North American Industry Classifications, it's all the industries in 31 and 33, these are all durable goods and non-durable goods. When people think about manufacturing, they think about cars, but they don't think about chocolate. They don't think about bakeries, they don't think about medical devices. They don't think about all that. And I always joke and I say, if you look around you, I mean, look around you right now. Everything in the room and everything that you're wearing was manufactured.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: So sometimes I think maybe it's an American thing, but we just assume this just comes from somewhere. We don't know where, but it comes from somewhere, and yet it comes from all around us. I had the opportunity to take a journalist who wanted to interview me and I said, "Don't do it in my office. Let's go to a factory." And it was like a kid in the candy store, that this was happening in his backyard, that they were creating these conveyors that you would see on TV on shows like How It's Made.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: The very same conveyors are in this blue building that you drive by every day. But manufacturing takes a lot of different forms. Could be supplements, could be pharmaceuticals. So everything where we're transforming an input, you take a bunch of inputs, some material, and we go through some process and the output is a finished good. Everything that falls kind of into that category is manufactured. So it's not just aerospace, it's not just cars. It's a lot of different things. We had a board meeting a couple of board meetings ago where we're in a company. It was called Sensation Candles. Sensational Candles. You don't think of that.

Heidi: No.

Kevin: If you're producing 100,000 candles a day, that's a production environment.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: We have a client in Sanford that produces 70,000 cheesecakes a day. Is that a bakery or is that a production environment? That's a manufacturer. They supply to all these other organizations. So manufacturing is, it's one of the three ways that you actually can create value. You can mine it, take it out of the ground. You could grow it agricultural or you can make it. And so we come from the world of making things, and that's the only way I can describe it, is just look around you. If it wasn't for manufacturing, we'd be sitting naked in a field.

Heidi: Well, I find your definition so enlightening because as you were talking, I started thinking about, I've been into manufacturing facilities and I've seen a piece of plastic be turned into a bottle that would then be filled with spring water. Right. And as you were talking, I was going through that experience that I had, and I just find that so fascinating.

Kevin: Yeah. Some of the biggest manufacturers we got in the state are bottlers.

Heidi: Yeah. So let's talk about that. How has Florida's manufacturing industry changed? I mean, I would love to hear you almost talk about what's happening on the national level and then bring it down to what's happening here in Florida with changes in manufacturing.

Kevin: Well, I think on the national level, and I think it was a genesis for this program that we're part of nationally. Over the last 40, 50 years, we slowly sort of offshored our manufacturing.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: And there was a period there in my career, I've been working for 40 years in this field. There's a period where people go, "Well, we don't manufacture things anymore. That's not important. We don't do that. That's a little stuff. Let's just ship that off to some other country. These jobs don't matter." And if you're looking at things purely from a GDP standpoint, there's probably other countries that are cheaper to build things. It doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get the quality you need. I think what people are beginning to understand, and Covid really rang a loud bell on this, was how resilient are we?

So I just said manufacturing is one of the three ways you could create wealth. There's really no other way. Three ways, and probably people from the technology industry would argue with me on that. But if you're not doing that, you're depending on other countries creating that wealth for you, and you're depending on other countries producing those products for you. And I guess that's not a problem if we lived in this wonderful, peaceful world, but we don't live in a wonderful, peaceful world. We don't live in a world that's free of disruptions, like things like Covid or international pandemic. It's not a totally secure world.

So you have to have some degree of self-sufficiency. So Covid was a wake-up call for that. The fact that we were losing our manufacturing base probably since the 80s, maybe earlier 70s to a lot of Western Pacific nations spoke to, as we increase that dependency, we're also decreasing the strength of our economy, the resilience of our economy, and even the wealth of our economy. So Covid said, hey, did you know that 85% of the major ingredients or key pharmaceuticals that support life are all now coming from China?

Heidi: Wow.

Kevin: And it's not whether you like China, you hate China. What if you just cut off from China, which we got cut off by Covid. Most of our PPE or protection was coming from China. Oh, what if you can't get the masks? What if you can't get the ventilator parts? What if you can't get the materials you need for defense? A big one, and you hear it nationally, is semiconductors. 85% of the most advanced, and I say 85% twice, but that's the statistic. The other one was at 85%. It was 85 of the major ingredients. 85% of the most advanced semiconductors are produced in one plant in Taiwan.

Heidi: Yeah, I've read about that.

Kevin: And you hear people talk about the tension there. What if, what if, what if, China were to just take over Taiwan?

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: So you're beginning to see a reshoring, it's the term people are using, of manufacturing. You're also beginning to see suppliers moving close to their customers because that was one of the biggest issues during Covid, the inability to get parts. We had defense manufacturers in the state that I know pivoted and started producing parts for ventilators because we couldn't get them. And it wasn't a national security issue, it was a shipping issue. It was moving goods during the pandemic issue. So if you want to have a safe, diverse, stable, high standard of living, resilient economy, manufacturing's got to be a part of that. We've gone so service sector in our brains that we lost sight of that.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: I think over the past, since Covid, there's been a bell ringing. I know defense has been awake to this for a long time because it's really important. We can't have our enemies producing our weapons.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: I remember when Russia took over Crimea and they wanted to do sanctions against Russia, and they said, no more. We're not going to buy any more materials. And found out we were producing, most of our rocket engines were coming from Russia. And Senator McCain at the time said, really? And put it on our defense base here. We need to turn that around real quick. That's not a good thing. You're talking rockets. That's what we shoot at each other.

Heidi: Right. It's crazy.

Kevin: I think it's an industry that the country has grown a greater appreciation of. Bringing that down to Florida,-

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: We have an economy down here that has been largely defined by agriculture.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: By tourism, and by growth construction. We build things.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: And as a state, we've always been a net importer. We don't produce things here, but your aware population is growing in leaps and bounds.

‍

Heidi:

It is. It is.

Kevin: 1100 people a day I think is the latest chamber statistic.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: And you're beginning to see a need for a more resilient for Florida economy, a need for a diversified economy, a need for increasing our standard of living. People in manufacturing jobs do a hell of a lot better than people in tourism jobs. Not that, I don't have anything against tourism.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: I love being in Florida and not having to pay taxes. Yeah. But that standard of living, manufacturing pays much higher wages. It gives us that resilience. During Covid manufacturing kept rolling. That was actually, manufacturing pivoted to actually help us in many ways get through that rough period. So it's important to the state's economy. And the other thing is, and we did a report just recently in partnership with, in support of the State Department of Commerce.

Heidi: Yeah, I got that report.

Kevin: Yeah, it highlights the importance of manufacturing, but it also highlights the fact that Florida manufacturing is way on the rise. Our GDP growth outstrips every state in the country. Our manufacturing employment growth outstrips every state in the country.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: Even our productivity, which kind of lags is the growth rate is way past others. What does that attributed to?

Heidi: Yeah, I was going to say, what's fueling that?

Kevin: I think a big part of it, which we point out in the report, is our population. Where the market goes so do manufacturers.

Heidi: Right. Right.

Kevin: We have all these people in Florida. That's where our suppliers are. That's where our buyers are and our customers are. And so that's a driving force. Manufacturing typically propagates around those high population areas in the country.

Heidi: Right. Right.

Kevin: Midwest, all along the coast. So it's only natural it'll follow Florida.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: An accelerator to that is the policy environment that we have down here as it relates to doing business.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: This is a great state. A lot of hands off, a lot of smart, to the extent there is regulation and smart regulation is not prohibitive. So if you're going to start a business, this is probably one of the places you would sort of turn to. I think we outstrip and startups most, we might be number one if we're not number two in the country.

Heidi: I know we're, yeah, one, two is what I recall from the Florida Chamber Report.

Kevin: So if you're going to start a business, this is a great place. The other thing, I think that's a driving force, I would say the Space Coast. You got to look at that and look at what's happening over there.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: That whole venture into commercial space. We're going from one launch every few years to 100 or so in a year.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: With that, it's brought high value companies like a SpaceX, like a Blue Origin, like a OneWeb,-

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: But also their suppliers, that when they first started remained in a lot of their other locations. And now with the frequency of launches, they're moving closer. So that's a driving force. And the other thing, which and I don't even want to put those in any priority order because they're not. It's the collection. The last thing is I think we have a tremendous sort of talent development environment. I think our public colleges are number one in the country. I mean, public universities, our college system that are producing the technicians and the apprenticeships, and even some of that skill development that's needed for the 21st century. I think Florida's way out ahead on that. So if you're looking for the suppliers, we're here. If you're looking for a pipeline of workforce, we're not only here and growing in terms of people, but we also have the infrastructure and talent development to get you there. So if you're a company and you're trying to look 20 years down the road, you can see things that we're doing in grade schools and middle schools that are leading to those high-skill kind of STEM-oriented jobs.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. So if we were looking at Florida, the geography of Florida, I think some people just don't realize how big Florida is.

Kevin: Oh yeah.

Heidi: How does manufacturing in North Florida compare to, let's say a South Florida? Because you touched on Central Florida. We see a lot of that Space Coast area just really expanding and growing. Actually, my son-in-law works in the space industry. So I get to hear him talk about it frequently. So let's talk about what's unique about manufacturing in North Florida and then a little bit about South Florida and anything else that's happening in Central Florida that's worth sharing.

Kevin: Well, one of the statistics that was a aha moment for me in that report was if you look at that Central Florida, and I know you didn't ask about Central Florida, but if you look at that Central,-

Heidi: Yeah, no, Central Florida was my last point of, yeah.

Kevin: That Daytona to Tampa area, about 50% of our manufacturing GDP is coming from that region.

Heidi: Wow. What's fueling that? You mentioned the Space Coast in that. What's fueling that?

Kevin: I think it's the Space Coast. It's defense. It's also when you're coming from the Tampa side, you've got some sophisticated medical device industries, defense industries over there. So a lot of high value all across that belt.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: You get into a lot of logistics and trade distribution centers I was going to say, even as you're in areas like Polk County, stuff like that. So it's a very rich region. In South Florida, you will see a lot of higher tech industries, you will see a lot of medical device industries. But you'll also see in South Florida, a lot of, if you go into eight county areas surrounding, we'll say like Miami, there's about 6,000 manufacturing establishments in that area. Now, a lot of them are very small.

Heidi: Small but still impactful.

Kevin: But you got to think, when we think about small, a lot of times when people think about manufacturing, they go, Ooh, SpaceX, or oh, GM or Lockheed Martin. But basically the foundation of manufacturing are those smaller supply firms that feed a SpaceX, that feed a Lockheed Martin that feed a GM.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: And we have a lot of that in Florida. So while we don't have a lot of headquarters, that's changing though, we have a lot of those foundation firms, I would call them. 80% of the 27,000 about manufacturing establishments that there are in Florida right now, 80% of those are under 20 employees.

Heidi: Wow.

Kevin: So we're talking about small supply firms, small job shop kind of firms. You see a lot of them in South Florida in that area. So a company count, they win down there, just a concentration of industries. When you get up into the North, and that varies from what's going on in Jacksonville,-

Heidi: Right. To Pensacola, all the way across.

Kevin: The anchor firms up in Jacksonville and Johnson & Johnson, which I think employs about 2000 companies. But you've got a number of big companies up. You've got a number of, even pulp and paper mills, a number of, how do they describe it? Non-metallic minerals, mining and things like that going on up there. That,-

Heidi: Mining?

Kevin: Well, that support fertilizer and [inaudible 00:20:12] like that. You got a lot of timber up there.

Heidi: Yeah. Know about, yeah.

Kevin: So you're seeing saw mills and things like that. As you get out further into the Fort Walton area, again, you see a defense concentration once again around Eglin Air Force Base.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: But you also see part of the supply base that feeds the Huntsville area and extends into the panhandle as well. And you've got sophisticated companies out there. I can't think if their GE, power solar, a big GE plant out there that builds the turbines that go into solar energy. So we have these little secret places within the state where we have these kind of leading edge firms. I mean, that plant, that GE plant feeds a very high percentage of all the windmills that you see around the world.

Heidi: Oh my goodness. This is just so fascinating to me because it's like you see these things, but you're providing that insight that,-

Kevin: We drive by them. We drive by.

Heidi:  Yeah, we drive by them all the time.

Kevin: We drive by a lot of metal buildings and we have no idea,-

Heidi: Yeah, that's fascinating. What are you the most excited about in your role and the fact that Florida, according to your report, we're the 10th largest state in the country for manufacturing employment. Right. So what are you most excited about for the future of Florida's manufacturing industry and sectors?

Kevin: I actually think, I get excited about the fact that when I said to you, Florida's traditionally known for agriculture, tourism, and growth, I remember reading a book on the history of Florida, I can't remember what the title was, but they were talking about that when they were referring to the 1940s. And we've lived with that identity. And what I get excited about is watching how that's changing.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: Changing around technology and see the concentration of technology that you see in some of our centers of Orlando around electronics and semiconductors.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: I was at a conference and Cathie Wood from Ark Investments, she referred to Tampa as the next Austin.

Heidi: Wow.

Kevin: And what you're seeing is a migration of capital now coming into the state. They're following that. And then down in Southeast, the whole financial community moving into Palm County and those areas, like Wall Street South.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: So I think you're seeing it becoming, you know what, a leading edge state and not just a place where you go on vacation.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: It's a place where you're going to see some of our colleges graduated many people over the years that left the state, and you're seeing them staying here and creating those businesses.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: So what excites me is watching that wealth creation, that transformation, if you will, of the state. Not that we don't want to be tourism, not that we don't want to continue to support our agriculture, but begin to realize that there are other opportunities given the environment, given the inputs like people, technology, of the possibilities what Florida can become. Watch that happen in a lot of other places and we've sort of been the last, one of the last ones to the party because we had a very sound tourism based,-

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: Agriculture based economy. I think that you're just going to see Florida explode. That's kind of exciting and scary at the same time.

Heidi: I was going to say.

Kevin: Because the growth is bears watching, and you want to manage that very well. And so you're seeing a lot of our institutions and even our government, I think doing a pretty good job of keeping their eye on the ball as we grow and we worry about infrastructure and we worry about natural resources and we worry about even preserving some of what makes Florida beautiful.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: We don't want to turn it into a smokestack. So the industries that you're seeing coming into the state tend to be higher tech, a lot cleaner, a lot more sophisticated. So I think that's exciting. What a great place to be. I know you watched people during Covid when everybody discovered you could do a lot of these high-tech jobs, data analysts, something like that from anywhere in the world, really didn't need to be inside a building. And now you say, well, where do you want to go? Well, they went to Florida.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: So if you can have a great job and a great place to live, what work could you ask for?

Heidi: Yeah, yeah. Now tell me, where does FloridaMakes fit in all of this growth and the future of manufacturing in the state of Florida? What is your role and how are you helping shape the future of manufacturing in Florida?

Kevin: The thing that, we try to do that in a couple ways. We have the traditional mission that comes with being one of these manufacturing essential partnership centers that says go out there and be available as an extension agent to work with companies that need help with talent, that need help with technology, they need help with growth. Sometimes their hair's on fire, sometimes they just need to know which way to go to capture a new opportunity.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: So that's our kind of base level of activity. Another role that we've taken on, and I think we've been fairly successful at is we're like the cheerleader for manufacturing.

Heidi: Okay.

Kevin: Because it's not seen or has not been seen traditionally as a manufacturing state, there hasn't really been any, I would call any kind of sort of infrastructure or focus around manufacturing as an industry. So we have a Department of Agriculture. We have departments dedicated to tourism, to transportation, to all these other areas. There isn't a manufacturing, that policy and regulatory environment specific to the industry and to nurture that industry doesn't necessarily exist. And so over the past 10 years, we've been sort of, I joke and I say the ugly cheerleader. This is important. Hey, this matters.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: And it's not that the pieces weren't there. When I came down to Florida in 2015, the thing that excited me most was all the ingredients were there. How do you get them together and how do you coordinate that and how do you optimize that in such a way that it's a well-oiled machine and just not a bunch of independent parts?

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: So a role that we've taken on is to try to be a, I don't know, community organizer, facilitator of getting people in the room and getting people talking about manufacturing.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: So lighting that fire has been sort of one of our goals. Walking through the halls of Tallahassee and saying, hey, this is important. You have your hands on the report there. I look at that report more than anything. I look at that report as an educational piece that could make people go, oh, wow, really? This matters. And Secretary Kelly, kudos to him, he opens up the report basically saying in the preface there, Florida is a manufacturing state.

Heidi:  Yeah.

Kevin: And that's kind of in response to the many voices out there go, "Oh no, we're not a manufacturing state." You can't have 27,000 manufacturing establishments and say, you're not a manufacturing state.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: You can't have almost a half a million people working in manufacturing and say, you're not.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: We've gone from 24, no, 42 billion GDP in 2014 to 74 billion in 2022.

Heidi: Wow.

Kevin: Nobody's grown like that. Now, is that,-

Heidi: Wow.

Kevin: Are we ready to knock California and Texas out of business? No, probably not. But I think in 2030, I think 2035, we will go, we were talking earlier about being 10th.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: And we go back and forth between 10th and 11.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. I see that in here.

Kevin: Every other month, Georgia pulls up and their ahead of it, so. But I think we're going to go from that place to probably about third, probably about third in time. We're just coming from behind in the sense of having a focus directed set of goals around supporting and advancing our manufacturing economy.

Heidi: Wow.

Kevin: And I see that coming out of the governor. He's on board. I definitely see it coming out of the Secretary of State. I mean, the Secretary of Commerce, Alex Kelly. And I think you're beginning to see the legislature go, oh yeah, this matters. So more than anything, that report to me was for them.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: Even though that's the first of its kind, report where anybody studied manufacturing in the state. That thing I was telling you about, half of the GDP coming along the I-4 corridor there, that was an aha to me. I always thought it was more spread out. I thought there was more in the South, not that the South Florida is not big, but because there are a number of firms down in the South Florida, it was really the kind of firms in the middle. So for everybody, even if you're in manufacturing, there's aha moments in that report. And so that's where the conversation begins. It begin with having some data, putting some data on a table. Did you see this? Did you know this?

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: And that's not just for our appetite. That also tells the rest of the country and maybe even the rest of the world, hey, they make things in Florida.

Heidi: Yeah, I think that's so fascinating. And I love the story that you just told, and I'm sure people are probably going to be listening and watching this and saying, I had no idea. I had no idea. So now that they know and they have an idea, what would you recommend they do if they're interested in learning more or if they would like to figure out if their business could support manufacturing in some way in Florida? What's the call to action for our listeners and viewers here?

Kevin: Well, to learn more is the report. And I don't know if in the process of editing this, you might want to put the QR code in there.

Heidi: We'll share in there.

Kevin: Yeah.

Heidi: Yeah. We'll share it.

Kevin: Because the report's available to anybody. It's up on the Department of Commerce website.

Heidi: Okay.

Kevin: I think it's probably on our website. If it isn't, shame on us. Contact us, contact your local economic development organization, all very heavily involved in,-

Heidi: Yeah. I was going to ask at the local level, who do you work with at the local,-

Kevin: At the local level we tend work primarily with regional manufacturing associations.

Heidi: Oh.

Kevin: And so there's about, they come and they go, but there's about 11 or 12 of those throughout the state. Definitely in the high concentration areas like in Jacksonville, Orlando, South Florida, over in Fort Myers, SAMA, over in Sarasota and then definitely in Tampa,-

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: Up in the Panhandle. So we have a local reach. If you get on our webpage, just kind of look at the map and where you're at, there's somebody somewhere from FloridaMakes that's there to help you. There's somebody somewhere from one of the regional associations there to help you. If you're in a specialized industry, like a photonics or if you're in the, we've been talking with the folks from the life sciences community, folks that deal with pharmaceuticals and that kind of thing.

Heidi: Right. Right. Right.

Kevin: We've been talking to folks from medical devices, medical manufacturers. Those organizations exist in the state too, that help aggregate that voice, but also provide some degree of service to those industries. So you can always start with FloridaMakes, and if we're not it, we will get you to that place. You can also, within the Department of Commerce, there's a new position there resulting, I think from the report. They now have what, they're undersecretary for business development and economic development, a young man named Jason Mahon.

Heidi: Okay.

Kevin: Who is also co-titled the Chief Manufacturing Officer for the state. So I said to you before there wasn't a place that you could go, there's now a belly button in charge at the state level that you can start with.

Heidi: I love that.

Kevin: There's a lot of state assets, there's a lot of assets there from capital to technology, to workforce development, to apprenticeships. And so we try to help, FloridaMakes to be a navigator at that. And I know over the next five years, I'm going to work harder at being even a better navigator.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: Because like I said, the state's rich in those kinds of assets that help those businesses that you're talking about, so.

Heidi:: Yeah.

Kevin: Whatever you refer to us, usually that conversation begins with somebody saying, I need, dot, dot, dot, and then we take it from there.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: So.

Heidi: So Kevin, when you're not being our champion for manufacturing in the state of Florida, what do you do for fun? I mean, you've been here 10 years. What's your favorite thing that you love now that you're,-

Kevin: My favorite thing that I love right now is I have one and only grandchild.

Heidi: Yay.

Kevin: He lives about 20 miles away, and he just lights me up, so.

Heidi: How old?

Kevin: He's about a year and three quarters.

Heidi: Oh, wait a minute. I have a grandbaby in Orlando who's a year and almost three quarters. When was your grandbaby born? New Years?

Kevin: December of, I got to think about that.

Heidi: Around Thanksgiving?

Kevin: It was around Thanksgiving. It was the 26th.

Heidi: Really? My grandbaby was born on New Year's Day.

Kevin: Oh yeah.

Heidi: Yeah. So isn't it amazing how,-

Kevin: Oh my God, this is like,-

Heidi: The joy of my life.

Kevin: I remember feeling that when I had kids, and then I kind of, like somehow that fades.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: And then all of a sudden, bang,-

Heidi: Bam. It's in your face.

Kevin: So I have three kids, I call him number four.

Heidi: Yeah. Oh, well, congratulations.

Kevin: But that's the big thing.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: Other than that, just kind of traveling around a lot. And during Covid, I started riding a bicycle because I was going to stir-crazy at home in those first months.

Heidi: Right. Right.

Kevin: And so,-

Heidi: We all were.

Kevin: Been trying to do that. But the truth is, I could do more things that are fun.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: I got really into, weirdly really into Orlando City soccer.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah, we actually interviewed them. Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah. And that's been really exciting over the past year. So I don't know how, that started, I think during Covid and watching some of these shows, so but that's been exciting. Would I like to do more things? Yeah. When? I don't know.

Heidi: I know.

Kevin: But my grandson's number one. He's the real joy.

Heidi: I love that. Well, I want to thank you,-

Kevin: Glad that he's local too.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. I want to thank you for being on the show and on our forum here. And I want to kind of wrap up a little bit around you all celebrate manufacturing month. And I'd like to know just a little bit more about that and what it means and how it helps highlight this strong growing and robust manufacturing sector that we have here in the state of Florida.

Kevin: I think to all the things we just talked about, it's about awareness and increasing awareness, but the real genesis for manufacturing month was to expose young people to the fact that these types of jobs exist.

Heidi: Good.

Kevin: Now for the past 30, I don't know, maybe 40 years, we've been sort of operating with this mentality that everybody's got to go to college.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: Everybody has to go. And that's not the case. That's not,-

Heidi: I agree with you. I agree with you. 100%.

Kevin: So we walked away from some of those trades and those technical skills, technical type skill industry because everybody's got to go to college.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: And we're really starting to revisit that now.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: My father had a shop. In his mind, I'm a kid of the 60s. I was born in 60s. In his mind, his kids were all going to go to college.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: I'm not sure any of his kids were as financially successful as he was, but he was damned if we were going to work in a shop. And I think it had something to do with second class, whatever mentality, but call a plumber, call an electrician and pay that bill and tell me how second class that is.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: We got that drilled into our brains. You will do this. I think you're beginning to see that kind of turn around, but it begins with exposure, not only of the kid, the child, but the parent.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: But the parent is still one of those big filters going, oh, no, no, you can't do that.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: But there's very lucrative opportunities for people to not get caught up in a ton of debt. And if you're somebody that likes to work with your hands and you're not really interested in sitting in a classroom and,-

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: Figuring out the theories of the universe,-

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: There are a lot of pathways here, career pathways. And so we tried during manufacturing month to get as many, I would say middle schoolers to high schoolers to do plant visits and visit these companies. There was a guy from UpSkill America that I saw a few years back speak, and he said, he had a line. He says, "If you can't see it, you can't be it."

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: If you don't know that that exists, you don't pursue it.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: So this is your opportunity to learn. Yeah, there's another job out there. You want to work with robots, you want to work with your hands, you want to make furniture, you want to build rocket ships, you want to make chocolates.

Heidi: Right.

Kevin: Those things are all sort of real, and they're there and you could pursue them and the opportunities there. So this is about giving that kind of exposure. I remember during manufacturing month a couple years ago, there was a young woman on a tour. It was a company over in, Southern Manufacturing Technologies over in Tampa. And she was part of the tour. She worked at Southern Manufacturing Technologies. I said, "How did you get started?" And you see this young woman in manufacturing, you got white coat on. How did you do this? She goes, "Oh, oh, when I was in high school, I went on one of those plant visits and I thought, that's what I want to do." So that's sort of an obligation as parents to that next generation to say here are those opportunities.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: Because manufacturing jobs tend not to hire 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds because of probably liability issues, safety issues more than anything. By then they've already worked at McDonald's. I shouldn't pick a company. They worked at a restaurant and they want to be a chef.

Heidi: Yeah. But you're right, it's the exposure.

Kevin: The exposure.

Heidi: And what gets them excited. And you're right. I mean, I think about my time with my own children and also being chair of the chamber here in Tallahassee. And the idea was that not every kid is going to go to college and recognizing that, but then exposing them to things to find out what they're excited about and passionate about and what they could be really good at to make a living. So I really appreciate that, that you're doing that.

Kevin: I want to make sure there's an important spin there too. Not every kid wants to go to college.

Heidi: I know.

Kevin: And you hear people talking sometimes when they talk about these jobs as a consolation prize. No, they're just a different pathway. And I will argue, there's a company on our board that says, hey, we hire welders. Some of them make six figures.

Heidi: I know. Yeah. The welding program here at Tallahassee State College, I mean, these guys are making a lot of money and they're loving life.

Kevin: So look at some of the average salaries of some of the average four-year college graduates. And you go, oh yeah. So there's an opportunity there. And if you're somebody who likes to work that way or work with your hands or work outside.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: Not everybody's made to be at a desk. Even if you're the smartest math person in the world, you can be that smart math person and be a machinist too. And a lot of those folks in the trades and in manufacturing jobs are often the people that create businesses. And they're that one-off vendor. They're the less than 20 that I was talking about. They are folks that went down that pathway and created their wealth with their hands and their head and not just their head.

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: So that's what manufacturing most about exposure. Our measure of success there is how many thousands of kids did we drag through these plants?

Heidi: Yeah.

Kevin: And the manufacturers are wonderful in opening up their doors.

Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. I know a lot of them that do open houses. That's how I was able to see how the bottled water was made and other places that I've been to,-

Kevin: Oh, yeah.

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Heidi:

Is because either they were our clients or I went to an open house because I was curious, just like everybody else and,-

Kevin: Just go, yeah.

Heidi: Fascinating. Just fascinating. Well, Kevin, thank you so much. This was such a rich and engaging and informational conversation, and you are truly Fluent in Floridian, and I appreciate everything that you're doing to help,-

Kevin: Wow. That's a compliment.

Heidi: Make our state,-

Kevin: To become fluent in Floridian.

Heidi: The best place to live, work, and play. Yeah. I mean, you,-

Kevin: I wonder how long you have to live there before they let you say yeah, you're,-

Heidi: Well, you're there. You're there. So thank you.

Kevin: Thank you for the opportunity.

Heidi: My pleasure.

Kevin: Like I said, this is part of our job, is to get that out there. So you're giving us a medium to do that, and I appreciate that.

Heidi: Well, we're happy to help. Thank you.

Kevin: All right. Thank...