GA 237 | How to Incorporate and Leverage Sustainability with Brion Hurley

Are they making decisions today that are going to put them in jeopardy down the line? It might look good on their financial statement this quarter or this year, but what about five years from now and ten years from now? Are they going to have to be paying more costs overall because of the short term thinking?

A few months ago, we heard how the good folks over at Texas Nameplate are focused on the triple bottom line of people, planet and profits. Today I'm excited to this sustainability conversation with Brian Hurley. As you'll hear, Brian started his continuous improvement journey learning about Lean and Six Sigma. After a few years, he was introduced to the sustainability movement and hasn't looked back. On today's show, we dive even deeper into the triple bottom line. I then really pepper Brian with questions about how an organization can go paperless and why doing so makes a lot of sense. Finally, we finish things up by exploring the work he's doing with Lean Portland and how similar efforts can and should spread across the world. Show notes for this episode, which will include links to everything we discuss, can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 2, 3, 7. You can also check out GEMBA Academy's Lean Learning system over@gembacademy.com with a fully functional trial. Now let's get to the show. All right, Brian, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Good, thanks, Ron. All right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm. I guess we. I don't know, I think we met up over LinkedIn or something like that, wasn't it? I don't know.

We did. I think I met you at an AME conference.

Oh, that's right.

In Dallas or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. You came to our cocktail party, if I remember.

Yes.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, there's so many people there, I would expect. Wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't remember me.

I actually do remember you. Yeah, Well, I got your picture here, too in front of me, so I do remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So are you going to San Diego by any chance?

I'm not this year.

Okay. All right.

It doesn't work out.

Yeah.

I would like to get back there.

Yeah, well, jump on a plane, come to the cocktail party Tuesday night, and then go home. That's the best part.

That's a good idea.

All right, well, hey, thanks for coming on. So before we get into your background and all that kind of stuff, Brian, I know you know how the show flows. We like to kind of begin with our Guest sharing a quote. Do you have one?

I do. There's a couple good ones, but I think the one I really like is the Fuji Ocho quote around. Go see ask why show respect to me. That's really simple for people to remember, first of all. And then it really gets at the heart of kind of the principles that make Celine really powerful, that kind of continuous improvement approach. But really the people side of it that it is about, you know, helping people feel comfortable talking about problems and focusing around helping them do their work better. Yeah, I really like that.

Yeah. It's a simple statement, but so hard. Right. How often do we do we not go see? How often do we not ask why and how often do we often not reshow respect for people?

Right. So yeah, it's so easy for. I mean, it's just principles everybody can use all the time and we have to be reminded on those. That's right.

Good stuff. Good stuff. All right, well, Brian, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background, how you first got into continuous improvement and what you're up to these days.

Okay. Yeah. I went to school at the University of Iowa and I got into statistics just because I had to pick a major at some point. And I liked math and thought maybe there's some applicability here. And so that kind of took me down a path of Six Sigma. And that was kind of new at the time. This is mid-90s, so I was just starting to come around. And then when I started working, I went to work at Rockwell Collins, which is company based near Iowa City, it's in Cedar Rapids. And they had a need to kind of expand their quality improvement program and they needed somebody to do some statistical analysis. So I filled in for somebody who had just recently left, and they were going through a lean journey because they're a supplier to Boeing. And so as I was kind of bringing in some of these Six Sigma concepts and tools, I was also learning about lean and picking up that side of it. So over the, you know, the time I was there, I was there 18 years and I was always in some kind of improvement role and just kind of picking up and learning the different tools. So really kind of gotten a really good exposure to both sides of it.

Yeah, good stuff. Good stuff. So how did you today, you know, obviously going to spend some time talking about sustainability. So how did you get in kind of interested and involved in this sort of this aspect of lean?

Yeah, yeah. So when I moved down to Florida for work, this is probably 10, 12 years ago, I Met my wife and she had kind of had that mindset already around not wasting things and being frugal and kind of being conscientious of how she makes decisions and what she buys. And that really opened my eyes a lot. And then as I started kind of learning about some of the environmental problems, what kept coming back to me was these are just like problem statements. There's data there, and I know what to do with data. And I have approach and methodology that could work on these problems. And these are really challenging issues, and they apply to businesses. There's energy costs and there's landfill charges and there's hazardous waste disposal and transportation that are actually impacting businesses. And I really saw that really strong connection between Lean and Six Sigma and how they can improve these environmental problems. So I started doing tons of research and first getting myself familiar with some of these problems and then also looking for examples and case studies where people have gone out and applied these tools to solve some of those problems. And the EPA had actually put out some booklets about that time that were like Lean in the Environment and Lean in Energy and Lean in Chemicals, Lean in Water. And they're really good guidebooks. And they're still available on the website for people if they're going after those types of issues in their work, to see how they can apply value stream mapping and Kanban systems and control charts to their problems. So that got me really excited and I started to really push more effort inside the company to do these types of initiatives. And then eventually I really wanted to do this all the time. And so last year I left and I've been on my own for about a year and just trying to reach out to really industries that haven't been exposed to a lot of these concepts, whether it's non profits b corporations or just businesses that are really trying to do the right thing, have a good mission to what they're doing. You know, every business is trying to make money, of course, but there's. There's a couple ways you can approach it, and some of them with really good, you know, focus around the people side of it. Those are the groups I want to be working with and helping them with these concepts.

Yeah.

So that's what made me decide I should probably try to do this on my own.

So. All right, well, let's jump right into it. You know, we had Dale Cronover and, well, we did a Gemba Academy live at this company called Texas Nameplate a few months ago. And I'm sure, you know, Dale and. And his Son, I haven't met them.

Yet, but I, yeah, it was a great podcast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so we talked about some of this and obviously, boy, they're sure passionate. In fact, Dale and I were trading some emails today talking about going paperless and different things like that. And so the sustainability, you know, effort, movement, whatever you want to call it, is really, I believe, gaining traction, but it needs to gain more traction. I'm sure you would agree within the lean community, but there seems to be even some just confusion around the word itself, sustainability. So what does that word mean? Sustainability?

There is some confusion there. I think most of us think about sustainability and we think about our Six Sigma projects and I have to show savings for 12 months or longer or when I finish our lean event. We need to have ongoing support and check ins and engagement to make sure that things don't slip back and revert back to where they were before. And so, and that's absolutely true and that's a piece of that. But I think the bigger picture is kind of around long term thinking. And one of the common quotes you might see is this Brundtland Report came out in 1987. They said it's meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. And so that kind of implies that obviously there's things we're trying to do as a society, but are we making it difficult for future generations to be able to do the same thing because we're depleting some of those resources or making it putting them in a situation where it's harder in the future? So that's, that's one way of thinking about it. And same for a business. Are, are they making decisions today that are going to put them in jeopardy down the line? It might look good on their financial statement this, this quarter or this year, but what about five years from now and ten years from now? Are they going to have to be paying more costs overall because of the short term thinking? So those are kind of what I think about and then try to make it really simple for people. I think about the triple bottom line where it's not just profits that we care about. It's always important, of course, but we want to think about the people side of it and how do we measure that and look at the planet impact. So sometimes it's called the three Ps and, and it's just making sure when we make decisions, it's not just all of our focus on profits. We have to look at what impacts this is going to have on our employees and the community we live in. And also what kind of environmental impacts would this have? And making a more holistic decision, not so much about what's the ROI on that, on things we can measure financially.

Yeah, yeah. People planet profits triple, bottom line. Yeah. You know, and when I was meeting with Dale and his team and, you know, spend a whole day out there, I would have been out there before as well, before the actual shoot. And you know, even if for folks who are just, you know, that sounds great, Brian, but we got to make a profit or we're not going to, you know, make payroll. Okay, well, fine. I think if you take sustainability just in the spirit of profit, you know, look at Texas nameplate, I can tell you they're saving many, many, many thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, as a result of recycling water, solvent, you know, and going paperless, not spending lord knows how much money on toner for the printers and. And whatnot.

So.

So, you know, even if you. Even if you were just solely focused on the profit side of things, you. I think you would be foolish not to look into, into sustainability. But clearly within the leading movement, the people side of it are, you know, is the most important part.

Right.

And yeah, without the people, you know, none of it really happens. Right. So.

And that's the best part is when you make lean improvements, you kind of accidentally get these benefits.

Right.

I mean, if you're spending time triple wrapping up a part that's kind of over processing and doing more packaging than you need to, or you're transporting it so far that you have to package it well, there's time and labor and material costs going into packaging up, and then it gets transported with fuel somewhere, and then someone has to unpackage all that work and then start doing their task. And all that is time, which directly impacts your dollars. So, yeah, I think there's a lot of us that are making improvements and maybe not realizing that there is. If we did the full business case of what you saved, you'll hit on some of these environmental impacts for sure.

Yeah. So I think if you talk to a traditional lean thinker, people and profits, they're pretty comfortable with that and they understand the importance. But when we get into the planet, obviously that's when some eyebrows might start raising. And not that they're against, you know, making the planet better, I'm sure they're okay. They think it's a great idea, but it's not something that we talk a lot about. So. So talk a Little bit about the. The planet and how we can take that aspect of this triple bottom line and build that into the way that we're. We're running a lean, you know, activity, a project, training event, anything like that.

Okay. Yeah. So I think the first thing would be if we start with value to the customer. What you're seeing is that there's a trend that the customers are starting to value that more. And so they're starting to ask those questions about where did the materials come from and where was it produced, and what type of. Is this a sustainable material or not? So I think at the heart of it is the customers are moving in that direction. And so likely your customers are doing the same. And you need to be listening and looking out for that and not caught off guard that all of a sudden you're losing market share or a competitor comes in who can provide those things that you're not providing. So, yeah, today you may not think it's important, but there's probably a growing trend going on in your customer base that is starting to look at that. So that would be fundamental, that, hey, it's just something your customer values. And obviously that's where we start with improvement. So I think that's important to think about and look at. There's an acronym that I use that actually is called waste, and it's a way for people to think about some of the environmental impacts in their processes. W would be for water, and then A is air emissions. S would be solid waste or stuff that goes to the landfill or trash. T would be toxins, and then E would be energy. And so it's an easy acronym for people in our field to remember because we're already familiar with. Yeah. And I got this from a class I took in Purdue University. It was a green manufacturing specialist program. And it was a way that they're trying to integrate this into manufacturing practices. And so it's through SME that kind of put a certification program together around that.

You know, we used to. Sometimes the phrase lean and green or whatever was thrown around, you know, a few years ago, but sustainability seems to have become the more, I don't know, popular term these days. Why is that? You think? Why is it not green? Like, why is sustainability.

Yeah, I think maybe people thought it was too narrowed around just the environment, and it really didn't incorporate some of this community aspect, or you start looking at some of the social issues going on that you could look at companies and how they pay their employees, and if they're getting healthcare or welfare Benefits because they're not being paid enough or that they're slashing hours to stay under the minimum amount to not have to pay them benefits. You know, those are some things I think that are also really important. And people are asking questions about. Of companies and saying, what is your mission? And do I want to work here? Is this a company that I think is doing the right thing, or are they kind of trying to figure out ways around the rules or the right way of doing things? And so, yeah, I think it's just. It kind of expanded to more just sustainability because there's a lot of other things that people said are also important and including those in there.

Yeah, no, I got you. I got you. It makes sense. You know, something I want to. I want to talk to you about. And again, I was. I was conversing with Dale over email today here at Gemba Academy. You know, I would say we're trying to get it better on the triple bottom line, in particular with, you know, paper, you know, and we don't use a lot of paper, but we still use paper. In fact, the other day I was. The AME conference is coming up, and we're building out this kind of schedule for when I'm gonna be doing some podcast interviews out there. And so I'm looking at the schedule on the show and when I'm gonna do these interviews. And so, you know what I did, I printed out the stupid schedule. And then. So here I am with this paper, you know, looking at the schedule and then back on my computer, and paper back on the computer. I'm like, why didn't I just. I have a huge monitor. You know, I thought, why didn't I just open the schedule, move it to the right, and then have my other thing to the left? It would have been better anyhow. Ca. I wouldn't have had to look down. But it was just. I mean, I'm not happy to say, but it's just natural for me to print it out.

Sure.

So talk a little bit about helping folks go paperless. And I'm asking for myself here as well as anybody else listening.

Yeah. So I think part of it is behavior change, and we can look at that as that's always something important. We have to think about is how do we get people to do the right. The new process that's better, or we think it's better. We want them to test out or experiment with it. And do we have all the right incentives in place to do that? Are they being. Is their manager asking them to do that are they supporting them? Are they giving them training? Are they explaining why the change is needed? Are they making it convenient to do the right thing? So if your printer's right there and you don't have to walk very far, it's not very painful.

Yeah.

If you have to walk across the room down the hall, you have to think twice maybe about that. So those are some little tricks you can do. But I wouldn't beat yourself up either, Ron. Sometimes I print out paper too, because it is the right thing for that application. And for certain things it gives me a better job. So when I teach a class, I have a checklist of things that go through and I want to have that on my paper because I don't want. I got my screen up in my PowerPoint slides. So it actually is valuable in that sense to print it out for me and I can make notes and say, okay, next time I forgot to do this, I'm going to edit that. And so, yeah, I don't, you know, don't. I wouldn't get wrapped up in every little thing and saying, I can't print paper. It's just everything you do just kind of look at it and say, did I have to in that case? So like in your example, maybe I didn't have to that time, but maybe for, you know, people you want to meet with at the conference, you do want to have that sheet ready and available and it's hard to read on your phone. And so.

Right.

Yeah, I think that's a good use of paper in that example. So.

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's probably with anything, just saying your paperless doesn't matter. I mean, I saw some paper at Texas.

Right.

I mean, it wasn't like there wasn't a sheet of paper in the building. Right. But I, but I think the point is, you know, it's very limited. Right. There was no work orders flowing around the factory because it was all, you know, electronic and then, you know, monitors next to the stations and whatnot. But.

But yeah, and there's costs with the paper that people could look at. I mean, I've seen some examples of trying to build a business case for reducing paper. And of course you have the actual paper itself, but you also have the ink toner and that has to get replaced and there's cost to replacing that or having a service provide that. You also have floor space.

Yeah.

With the printers. If you have a larger, you know, bigger printers that takes up space, that's one less cubicle or desk. You can have filing Cabinets. You have more of them. Filing cabinets. Yeah. Huge amount of space and saying, look how much we're printing and storing in a paper form. That probably, you know, risk wise, we shouldn't even have that in a paper form. It should be scanned and available electronically. And then the walking distance to and from the printer and the time you're spent reformatting files and saying, okay, does this look right? Oh, no. I printed three extra pages because I didn't look at the print preview. Now I'm going to go back to my desk and revise that. So it's. The paper is almost the inexpensive part of it. It's the time spent preparing the document for printing and then going and getting the paper is really maybe more valuable. Waste of time in a lot of cases.

Well, I got Dale's email up here in front of me right now electronically.

Okay.

I didn't print it out. And he says, I won't read the whole thing, but he's giving me some tips. And he said towards the bottom of it, he said that they've calculated that they've saved. They save $75,000 per year being paperless. Said the biggest big expense is not so much the paper, it's the toner that's expensive. Other big savings is reducing labor time, filing, retrieving, et cetera. So, you know, that's a. That's.

That's it.

That's a person's salary right there, you know, so, yeah, that's pretty incredible. Pretty incredible.

And my former company, we had people that their job was to scan documents that came in hard copy. And so that's almost the entire person was actually doing. Trying to make things a little easier to read and access by putting it into a file system. But, you know, the question is, why can't these files come in electronically? And the suppliers were asking the same things. Why. Why can't we send these in? We're. We're printing it on our end.

Yeah.

Just to meet your format. And it's taking us time and that's delaying the shipment. You know, it's. Yeah, it goes all the way through the value stream. So that one little thing, paper, that's it. And then we're talking about a lot of other things in terms of impacts. But one little thing, you can really start to see the impact across the board.

Right, right, right, right. So talk a little bit about. So we spent some time on the planet, but let's talk a little bit about people of sustainability, which most lean folks would be like, yeah, I get it. But what does it really mean within the sustainability context?

Yeah, so I think, yeah, the first is really that key thing that we all focus on is how do we engage people, get them into the right positions that they can excel, give them the cross training to make them flexible and agile so that they have different skills and talents and are more valuable for the organization and they don't get bored in their routine tasks. But I also think, you know, obviously with Lean, we don't ever want to lay off somebody or that will just destroy your program. But even, you know, when we look at people on financial statements, it looks like it's all an expense. And I think if companies can start to rethink how they look at that cost and think about it more like almost like an asset, like someone who's been around for 15 years, how do you quantify the value and the knowledge and the networks and the process expertise that they develop over those, over those years? And you can't just summarize it down to what you're paying them. And so I think if they, if companies start to look at how do we value that or summarize that in a different way, that a certain amount of years equates to more value to that person. So if you're trying to make decisions about saving money and for some reason you're going to go down the path of laying somebody off, someone with more experience would be looked at differently. Look how much impact they would have on the organization if they left versus here's what the expense would be if their salary wasn't paid for anymore. So I think just really kind of looking at that, you're really, you know, if you're really going down this correctly and this is a learning organization and you value developing people, that how do you, how do you build a metric around that? So you look at that correctly and so then you can really say, you know, what part of it is. How do we show that we're developing our people? And if you can come up with a financial way of doing that, I think that'd be great. I don't know if anyone's done that yet, but otherwise, if it's just kind of a word and there's no metrics to tie back to that again, how, how do people show that they're making an improvement? How do we show that you're investing in people and giving them training opportunities and getting them involved in projects and events if you're not having a way to track that? Yeah, so I think that's another thing for people to look at. And of course, if your employees are happy, the idea is that your customers will be happy because they're going to exude that excitement and passion around your company, and that will come through to the customers. And then the other piece I really like to promote would be, how do we take. We have lots of good experts out there with this knowledge and experience that they built up. And then we have. In your community and in your city, you've got organizations and nonprofits that don't have that knowledge, and there's a big need there. And so how do we. I really had to figure out a way to connecting Lean practitioners Six Sigma Black Belts to nonprofit organizations in their town or city, in their community. And hopefully the company can support that and even give paid time to go do that work. And that could be part of their sustainability program. As we're going to kind of like the TSSC approach that they go out and they work with nonprofits, and that's part of their mission. And they get good branding from that. That's great publicity for them. And it's fun for the people who are doing the work. It's so rewarding for them. You can just see it in the videos that they put out. It's just really inspiring. And so I'd really like to figure out how we can kind of build this community of practitioners that can go out and work with local nonprofits or teach the government agencies who are interested in learning about this stuff that they just haven't been exposed to it as much as us who have been in industry for a long time.

Yeah, I remember that one. There's that. I'm sure you've seen it, that video with Toyota folks over helping the food pantry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one was that they weren't filling the boxes all the way, so they're putting big, big cardboard boxes in the truck, but they weren't full, you know, and so, like this. I was like, come on, that's so awesome. You know, these lean people, man, just love Toyota, you know?

Yeah. That video gets so much positive feedback when I play that. I've probably played it like 50 times. Yeah, it's my favorite. And it's so good. And it's so simple for people to understand.

Yeah, we'll link to it in the show. Notes for People.

Yeah, yeah. If you haven't seen that, you have to go watch that.

So good. So good. Hey, so I want to talk about the work that you've been doing with. With Lean Portland, but before then, kind of the last question, I Have just on this, on, on this triple. Bottom line is if someone wants to get started just improving in particular, let's just focus on the planet side of, of that equation. What would you, what would you say? Like what. Where would you tell them to start or consider starting?

Yeah, there's a couple, a couple ways you go at it. One would be as you're doing your improvement, let's say you got an opportunity to work on a Kaizen event or valuestream map or process map or Six Sigma project or something. I think thinking about that waste acronym and looking at should we be capturing this as part of our business case or as part of the opportunities in that effort, I think would be a good place to start. Or going back and looking at past improvements you've made and saying, did we save some energy when we were able to not have to run the equipment overtime on the weekend anymore? Have we actually captured that time? Or have we. Did we save paper? Did we save. We reduced the water usage? Did we make smaller batches? And so there's less rework, so less stuff went into the landfill or had to be disposed of through hazardous wastes. And that cost impact, I think there's probably a lot of that opportunity that hasn't been captured. So you might look back and say, oh, I've actually have done some stuff and didn't even realize it.

Yeah.

But I think also just bringing that mindset to the table that says, okay, yep, we're looking at yields, we're looking at inventory, we're looking at cycle times, lead times. What about energy? And what about the landfill costs and things like that?

Gosh, I remember this guy back in, when I worked in industry, he. He was in the maintenance department of this company and he went around and he basically sought out and fixed all these really small air leaks just around all of their equipment. And it was tons and tons. And somehow or another, I don't remember how they quantified it, but it was, it was just an incredible impact. You know, just all these small little air leaks all over the place that you can't even hardly hear. Right. But it's happening and it's just wasted energy.

Well, one of the techniques is to do energy treasure hunt or a gamble walk.

Yeah.

And so George kind of came up with this approach, I think, or they worked with Toyota on this. But basically, yeah, you go in at night or on the weekends and you walk around the facility and you start looking for opportunities. And those air leaks is maybe the first time they're hearing them because the Equipment's not running. The air conditioning is not running. All of a sudden, you hear these, you know, hissing sounds, and you pursue them, and you're like, oh, that's a little leak. And you can even. There's even calculators that say, okay, if it's this size a hole and you have this size of compressor, that you're probably losing, you know, this much money. And the compressors actually cost a lot of money to maintain and run. So, yeah, those are great things to notice. And notice the lights are on and notice that these fans are running and no one's there, and the equipment's just sitting there idle, and no one's powered it down. So, yeah, it's kind of combining that approach of going to the Gemba, but you're doing it at an odd time. You're not going when the work's being done. It's. When the work's not being done.

Yep.

Because there's some other opportunity there. So that's a. That's an easy tool to. To try as well, if especially, like, around energy.

I love it. I love it. So talk about your. Your work with Lean Portland. What's. What's that all about?

Yeah, so a couple years ago, a guy named Matt Horvat, he put together a kind of a networking group here in Portland. I'm in Portland, Oregon. And he also wanted to do some pro bono work with nonprofits as a way to kind of get people organized around that and give back and take his knowledge, everything he's learned over the years, and share that, but also to meet other people in the community that have the same background and knowledge and compare notes. And so over the last two years or so, we've been really getting organized around this, and we've started to work with about five or six different nonprofits now. And depending on the schedule and what the nonprofits need and who's available, we take the volunteers and try to match them up and then go meet with them and talk about Lean concepts and show them the Toyota video and talk about five principles and value stream mapping and just give them an education, then try to walk them through and help them with some kind of activity to implement these ideas and see if it can take off. And so a lot of the stuff we end up doing is we've gotten good and good with a lot of nonprofits that have donation processes. So that's really nice because it's almost like a manufacturing process, except you're just getting supplies that you didn't know you wanted or needed. You don't really like in a manufacturing, you're ordering supplies. In a nonprofit donation, the supplies just show up. And so you have to almost react to that in the process and try to figure out how do I flow it through our facility in an efficient way so it's available for someone to go by very quickly. So we're doing some work with that and plus also looking at volunteers and how do you onboard them and set up processes that you would start a volunteer in that's well marked, organized, color coded, simplified, so they can get up and running very quickly and be useful and feel like they're contributing without spending. What we're hearing is they're spending hours with staff trying to explain the processes to them, and that's eating up the staff's time. And the volunteer is kind of doesn't feel like they're actually contributing and they probably may not come back again because their experience wasn't very good. Yeah, so that's the common thing that we're hearing. But it's been great. We're getting a lot of momentum and we're building up our volunteer group and it's just been really rewarding to be with other people who are volunteering and huge knowledge gain from hearing, oh, what do you guys do at your facility? So we're comparing notes with the other volunteers and then we're also learning how to apply this to a new industry that's in desperate need of it. So it's been really cool. And that's the kind of model or something like that is really what I'd like to promote to see if others are interested in setting up groups like that in their city and we can help them or talk them through kind of the process we went through and share some best practices for them.

Yeah. So good. So good. You know, I want to keep picking your brain, maybe even off air here, a little bit more about just sustainability because. Because again, I want to, I want to do our part, our small part here. Again, by Academy. We're not a huge company, but we're still. We're a company. And, and, and I think maybe we. It's the time maybe next year where we could create some courses on, on this topic. Because I think it's something that again, the whole lean movement is not against, but I just don't think we're. We're on board enough. You go to Ame's and all the rest of these places and there's pockets of it happening.

Yeah, good pockets. Absolutely. There was some good presentations I saw related to that and you've had some good guests on. Yeah, I've got 10 podcasts I went back through, and these are all tied either lean in government or lean in the environment, or really high, strong focus around people. So I can send you all the numbers I pulled up.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Relevant to that. But, yeah, there's quite a few.

Help me research my own podcast.

Yeah, yeah. But so many.

I guess what I'm saying is I just feel like it's. There's a lot of good stuff happening, but it's just not organized enough. You know, we got to get everyone doing it. So it's kind of like, you know, we always said, stop doing your lean program. Everyone just thinking this way, everyone working this way. It's not a program, you know, it's a way that we work. I think we got to get that. I think we got to get there with. With sustainability to where it's just. It's. Everyone thinks this way. Right.

And it's set up perfectly for it. It's there. It's so. Right. It just got it. I think it's just really tweaking a little bit here and there. It's pulling in your environment, safety and health people and your fire facilities people early into your event and making them participate to say, you know, here's our problems. And, oh, by the way, yeah, we could actually cut out permit costs if we move things around and have to have a second equipment. You know, those opportunities they can help identify. So that would be, you know, some easy things you could do is involve the ESNH Environment, Safety and Health team into your discussions and facilities because they have a lot of the infrastructure, overhead, energy bills and stuff like that.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah.

No, I'm excited. I'm excited. I think it's. I think it's good. And I can't think of anything better, really, than protect our planet. Because without our planet and people, well, there's really not much left, is there?

There's no business. Yeah.

There's no profits. I know that.

That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good stuff. Hey, Brian, what's the best way for folks to connect with you?

Yeah, LinkedIn works really well. I'm at B R I O N. Hurley. I don't think there's any other.

I was gonna say, you gotta throw everybody off with that.

O. Right. Yeah. Mix it up a little bit.

Yeah.

It helps identify me from the rest.

That's it. Brian Hurley. Okay. LinkedIn and Portland.

Portland, Oregon.

Okay, perfect.

And we can put a link in there.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We'll link to all your. All your social media in the show notes. So that'll be GembaPodcast.com this will be episode 237. So. Yeah. And maybe. Yeah, Brian, send me all the other environmental or sustainability focused podcasts that we've done, and I'll link those too. Research my own show. How about that? That's awesome. Well, hey, thanks for coming on. It's been great. And keep up the great work and maybe we'll have you back on the show next year or so and just hear about more of the good work that you're doing out there in Portland.

Okay, sounds great. Yeah. If someone wants to set up something in their city, please reach out and connect. I'd love to talk to them about it and connect them with our Lean Portland group.

Yeah.

And, you know, it only takes, you know, one or two people to get excited about it and make a connection with the nonprofit. And I think that's a, you know, a huge opportunity. And this is the audience you've created. Ron is. Would be perfect for this.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm really excited for the opportunity to talk to you.

Good stuff. All right, thanks, Brian. Take care.

Okay, thanks.

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