Lucky Number 13

Lucky number 13. This is the Elevate Bulk Podcast, and I'm your host Chrissanne Long. And with me as always is Rob Arturi.

Hello.

And we're joined today by a guest, and I wanted to read a fan letter that I received and the reason why we have, um, Tip Fowler on the show with us today. But thanks to Mark Codd who is one of our podcast listeners. Thank you. Shout out to you.

Thanks, Mark.

Mark sent me a message not too long ago saying, please consider inviting your friend Tip Fowler to discuss the history of phosphate, including the story of Polk County, its current status and phosphate's future. Your friend Tip is not just a Polk County legend. The articles about him included in the Ledger lead me to believe he's one of the most important people to have maybe ever been affiliated with phosphate. So that was intriguing enough to me to say, I got to get Tip in here because I know Tip through my connections through United Way, and he is a supporter of small business. And together we kind of were able to launch a program that United Way kicked off last year, the Small Business United program. So welcome to the show, Tip. Tell us a little bit about yourself. We're happy to have you here.

Thanks so much, Chrissanne Long. Gosh, Mark, thank you for that introduction. I'm not sure. I'm not sure I'm up to all that. But it's really been a pleasure to be a part of the phosphate industry for the better part of 40 years.

Tell us how you found phosphate or how phosphate found you, you know, the better part of 40 years ago.

Okay. So I was a Navy brat and grew up traveling around the world as an only child. And with that, that running around the world, you know, developed a certain resiliency and ability to make friends pretty quickly. You do that as a Navy brat. Ended up in New Orleans, went to Tulane University, got out in engineering, went up to work for the Boeing Company for a couple years. And at the end of that time, myself and a couple thousand others of my dearest and nearest and dearest friends got laid off in one of the, one of the very cyclical aerospace industry layoffs. And I moved back to New Orleans to wed my bride Lynn. Uh, so Lynn and I were married in 1976, and at that time I began working for a company called Freeport Sulfur Company. Uh, sulfur, as you may or may not know, is a raw material in the, um, in the manufacture of phosphate fertilizers. Sulfur is used to make sulfuric acid, uh, and it was at that time mined. Um, most of the sulfur that was, uh, that was consumed in the United States was mined, and I was one of those guys that was mining it. I was involved in mining and selling sulfur around the world. And then around 1990, my company asked me to come over and work with Agrico Chemical Company. Our company, Freeport-McMoRan, just had acquired Agrico, and they asked me to come be the resident manager here. So I asked them, you know, first, were they out of their minds? I was in the sulfur area. I didn't know anything about phosphate. Mining it or processing it or anything. So why in the world were they asking me to come over and lead an organization that did those things I didn't know very much about? And they said, well, look, you know, it's technical, but you know, it ain't rocket science. You can do this. Even a Tulane grad can do this, you know?

So no offense, Tulane grads.

So I came over and got introduced to phosphate. I knew more than I lead on there about phosphate and knew the processes and the like. But it was certainly quite an interesting introduction in 1990 to come over here and lead a group of about 1,500 people and a couple of phosphate rock mines and a chemical processing plant and learning about the environmental challenges and the permitting challenges and the production challenges that are incumbent in phosphate mining then and even more so today.

Wow.

That's how I got introduced.

I love, I love that, all of that story. But my favorite is actually, I think, what we should have named this show. Are you out of your mind? I mean, you know, it was just perfect. So, so, Rob, why don't you come up? Because you're the, you're the one that knows so much more about all of these very important things. I'm just here to kind of you know, keep the conversation flowing. But you had some pre-conversations before we started the show that I wanted you to dig in with.

Yeah, so, well, we call the show Lucky Number 13 because phosphorus is the 13th element on the periodic table. However, I don't know that a, a pure, you know, science class lesson makes for a great podcast. But I think that for the most part, people, they've heard of phosphate, especially if you live in this county because it's such a big industry here. But a lot of people don't know what it is, what it's used for. I think most would say fertilizers, and I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a big part of it, right? But what are some of the other things that, that they use it for that are— what is this stuff that they're pulling out of from under our feet actually going into around the world?

Sure. So about 85% of the phosphate rock that is mined in the world is used for fertilizers. About 5% is used for animal feeds, and the rest is used for quite a mix of other, other materials, everything from additives to roadways, if you can imagine, to additives for bread. It's in your toothpaste. It's in your Coca-Cola. It's in— it was, it's no longer in dishwashing detergents, but it's—

Yeah, I'm not happy about that.

Yeah. And it, but it is, is still in to some degree in your laundry detergent. So it's got a myriad of applications around the world. The most important though is really feeding the world. But you mentioned about phosphorus and I gotta, you know, without getting into a chemistry lesson, maybe I could give you a little bit of a mystery lesson. Phosphorus way back when in 1668 was discovered by a German alchemist who was trying to make gold. Hennig Brandt was his name. And, Hennig Brandt took barrels and barrels and barrels of urine, of human urine, and he stored it for an inordinately stinky amount of time. He distilled it down— Like Harry Hughes. Yeah, trying to hopefully distill out of this mess gold, but what came was a glowing material that became known as Phosphorus Mirabilis, the miraculous light bearer, because that distilled putrid bit of residue that those barrels and barrels and barrels of urine produced, once distilled, glowed, and that was phosphorus.

You know, you have to, you have to think about how many of our amazing discoveries in this world came from a mix of genius slash, um, curiosity. Yeah, well, it wasn't just curious. This is somebody that's trying to make fake gold, right? So there's, there's somewhat of a, of a fraud type of, uh, you know, somebody trying to cheat. And we get a discovery from, from that. But who in the world thinks about all of this urine? Like, I mean, it makes me wonder sometimes, because that's an interesting story. I certainly didn't know it. But I do have to wonder sometimes, how many other people out there around the world throughout human history collected barrels of urine, or God only knows what, only to discover nothing? Like, where are these people? I just hope that none of them ever end up as my neighbor someday. I don't need my neighbor discovering the new the next phosphorus with, you know, barrels of urine or whatever.

Well, you know, Rob, it's interesting because, you know, phosphorus had its beginning in urine and we can get into as much or as little of this as you like, but we go from urine to bone to guano, which is bat and bird crap, to phosphate rock. And my prediction is ultimately we're gonna go back to urine and we'll talk about that in a minute.

All roads lead back to pee.

That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Oh boy.

So I think that's the future, you know, the future, I mean centuries in the future, the future of how do you get phosphorus values to make crops, you know, ultimately we will be in recycling, in recycling of phosphate and largely from urine, which is surprisingly replete with phosphorus.

Well, You know, let me ask you, Tip, if, if for those young people out there that are thinking about getting into the phosphate industry, would you have gotten into phosphate if it was instead of being mined from, from rock, it was being recycled from urine? I mean, do you think that will have an effect on the potential entry into the industry later on? Because it seems like it changes the dynamic a little bit.

Well, I think what's happening, you know, is actually What is occurring now, and to a greater and greater degree, is the phosphate values out of plants that dispose of sewage, they're able to extract some of that phosphate from that sewage stream. And that's what I mean by urine. It's not so much, you know, the people are gonna be depositing urine in 50-gallon containers and bringing it into the recycling center, but it's much more so that— much more so that—

Bring your plasma, bring your pee.

That's all right. Because once they reopen the bars, all they have to do is some creative plumbing and we would have an abundance of phosphate. I'm telling you, that's where the money is. Tip, you and me need to have a chat down here.

So bring, bring us to, to back to— so bring us to your experience here in Polk County and the richness of phosphate in Polk County and what that has meant to our area. From your perspective?

Yeah, so phosphate, maybe the place to start is 50 million years ago and do 50 million years of history in about 15 seconds. So amazing. Back in the Eocene period, 56 million years ago, Florida was forming. It was coming up from the ocean. and you had fish that were dying and their bones that are rich in phosphorus were depositing, uh, in, uh, in Central Florida and throughout Florida. Uh, phosphorus-rich waters from the oceans— uh, phosphorus is kind of interesting. It's more soluble in cold water than it is in warm water. So as phosphorus-rich ocean water came above the now shallow waters of Florida, they warmed and deposited phosphorus in the form of phosphate in the sedimentary basin that is Florida today. And so after a lot, a lot of years, you had a large phosphate, concentrated phosphate deposit. But at that time, you had 30-foot crocodiles and 6-foot turtles and hornless rhinos and iguanas and whales and sharks and all sorts of things that had deposited their bones in this phosphate region and why this region is so well known for fossil hunting. But there's a reason that you won't find any dinosaur bones here in Polk County. And the reason is Florida wasn't around 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs disappeared. But you'll find everything that is post-dinosaurs. Wow.

So what you're saying is there's no oil. In Florida.

Yeah, well, there is offshore, but yeah, there's certainly something that— a more recoverable resource in the way of phosphate.

Well, I've been shooting my backyard with a shotgun for years trying to pull a Jed Clampett, and so far it hasn't worked. And what you just told me is that I've wasted a whole lot of time.

Yeah, you better stop doing that and find something more productive.

My neighbors aren't too keen on it either, but I'm convinced some of them might have some barrels of urine. So whatever. We all have our hobbies.

Yep. So, um, so anyway, so around 1900, um, there were, there was about a billion six, uh, people on the earth, and they were fed through mining of, using organic techniques, of 850 million hectares of land. Um, today we have about double that amount of land, and if we were to, uh, farm it in the same way we did in the 1900s we'd be able to feed about 3.2 billion people. Unfortunately though, we have 7.6 billion people on the face of the earth. And so, you know, you can see that, that difference, it really speaks to the importance of not only phosphate but the fertilizer industry in a bit large. As a result of fertilizers, the yield has been able to literally double and we are able to feed the people on the face of the earth.

Yeah, I mean, didn't they predict that we were all going to starve and the human race was going to run out of food and it was going to be a global catastrophe?

Yes, Robert Malthus, back in the early 20th century, predicted that there was not enough land to feed the burgeoning population and we would starve. So, you know, what happened is humankind did what humankind always does. It innovated and it found solutions to the problems that threatened its existence. and, you know, one of those, one of those things was around 1950, you know, the development, uh, through the TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and other, and other organizations, uh, the, the commercial, uh, fertilizer industry, which concentrated fertilizer, uh, making it more economic to transport around the world, you know. Now, certainly not without some environmental consequence, and And we've all heard about gypsum and we've all heard about eutrophication and other things which argue for efficient, effective, and environmentally responsible use of fertilizers. But fertilizers are an absolutely essential part of feeding the world today.

So it's all about balance then.

It's about balance. That's right. That's right. If you, if you don't have enough phosphate, you don't have enough food. If you have too much phosphate, you have things like eutrophication. And neither of those is a good thing.

So now, why did they take the phosphates out of my dishwasher detergent? Because it's my understanding that when they did that, um, it changed how dishwashers work. And now they seem to be all fancy and have all kinds of bells and whistles, but they don't really clean as well without the phosphates. They leave like a residue or something. So is that— was that just a consolation? We just have to pick something, we could take them out of dishwasher detergent?

So in essence, you know, the, there, you've heard of the dead zone, which is an area offshore of Louisiana as the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico. And with, as it empties into the Gulf of Mexico, all the things that have been dumped into the Mississippi River upriver are dumped there. And there's a dead zone that's large and gets larger and gets smaller and gets larger and gets smaller. But a large part of that dead zone is caused by runoff, runoff of fertilizers and pesticides and other things. So, when the EPA took a look at point sources, "Hey, what are the sources of phosphate, which causes things like eutrophication? What are the point sources of phosphate that we can reduce to reduce this dead zone and reduce other kinds of pollution in the environment?" large uses of phosphate that they dump into waterways included things like dishwashing and laundry detergents. So a lot of the phosphate, most of the phosphate is out of laundry detergents and ditto in dishwasher detergents. And a lot more focus is now put on efficient farming techniques where you put the right amount at the right time so that the plant can uptake phosphate and nitrogen and potash minerals that needs to grow without, you know, without excessive runoff. So that was one of those consequences. Hey, we can do this. We can find some other way of washing our dishes other than with a phosphate builder. Builder meaning it builds the cleaning capacity of the detergent. And the EPA decided that that was the best use of of its efforts was to eliminate that. And so it was eliminated.

Well, I'll allow it.

So where is phosphate mining now today?

How—

what's the future? I mean, a lot of mines have closed. There's not as much activity as there once was, but I'm sure that it is not, you know, it's not a dead industry. So what is going on today in Polk County in relation to phosphate mining?

Yeah, so, um, the global phosphate industry of course has changed quite a bit. In direct answer to your question, um, there's probably, you know, um, a decade or two left of reserves in Florida, um, and, uh, and you talk to different people, you get different answers. And one of the things that will affect that and conceivably greatly extend that is technology. So ways Mosaic and other companies, the company that I helped found, a company now called NovaPhos, and others are looking at ways to use more of the phosphate, lower-grade phosphate. So today, if we continue to do what we're doing, there's probably 10, 20, maybe a little bit more years of phosphate mining available in Hardee and DeSoto and Manatee Counties. However, if the industry is successful in developing techniques to use lower-grade phosphate, that could be greatly expanded. Now, what does that mean? It's a big industry and it's the number one user of the Tampa Bay port. Authority. It's worth about $10 billion a year in economic value through the Port of Tampa. It employs about 40,000 direct and indirect employees. This is not tips numbers, these are according to the Tampa Port Authority, a study done a couple years ago. And so it's a big industry, it's an important economic industry, it's an industry that I think recognizes the environmental consequences and of it and are doing their very, very best to mitigate those environmental consequences and do good things, both with mined land as well as its chemical activities.

Gotcha. Well, I'm super intrigued since you brought it back up again about Nova Foss and your involvement there and how you— it was a startup. I mean, you used your— you were using tech to kind of make the fertilizer without— with less waste, is that correct?

Well, yeah, it was. I was— I had the great pleasure and luck of meeting a genius, a bona fide genius, a guy by the name of Dr. Joe Meggi, who had developed a technology for deriving phosphate values, making phosphoric acid an intermediate product to making fertilizers. From very low-grade phosphate rock. And so we started that company back in 2009. It continues to go on today. These are very difficult things to commercialize. You know, when you're talking about the kinds of investments the company have to— companies have to make in new processes, they're big investments. So the company's done a good job of doing the science, and they're now on the process of commercializing the technology. And what it does is it produces the phosphate and it produces the phosphorus values from the phosphate in an entirely different way that makes no waste and uses extremely low-grade phosphate rock. So it's a disruptor. It's a technology that could really make a meaningful difference in the world of phosphate both here in Florida and around the world. Because, again, phosphorus is— it's essential to all life, and without phosphorus, there is no life on Earth. And phosphate is a mineral that is limited. I mean, there's probably today identified recoverable resources about 300 years of phosphate. Well, what do you do after that? You just say goodbye to humanity? Well, no. You find innovative ways of recycling, like we talked about with sewage, and by using lower-grade feeds of phosphate rock, like the company that Joe Meggie's idea initiated, you know, can do.

So you keep saying this low-grade phosphorus, and thank you for sending me notes and information so I don't have to sound so clueless about these things, but I do wanna say that you put in parentheses, otherwise unusable. So it's such a low grade that it's just basically just going to go to waste if it's not used. And now we're innovating and finding a way to actually put this low-grade phosphorus to use. Is that correct?

That's correct. Yeah. In essence, where the dream here is, um, hey, listen, you know, today what is required is a phosphate rock that's about 30% phosphorus value, about a third sand, a third clay, a third a third phosphate-bearing material, phosphorus-bearing material. How do you get the most out of that? You know, let's take, you know, stuff that we used to throw away and let's get the phosphorus content out of that too. So if we're going to mine an acre of land and have to incur that expense and that environmental consequence, let's make sure we get all the goody out of it. And so, you know, So, technologies like this and others are working on other technologies. This happened to be the one that I was working on with my friend and genius buddy, Joe Meghi, and the great team that is there today in Fort Meade, you know, working to progress that technology. Yeah, we're, you know, it's how do you get the most out of that resource and how do you extend reserves?

Well, tell us a little bit about Joe Meggie. So he's in Fort Meade. The company, Nova Foss, is out of Fort Meade as well, or are they based somewhere else?

Yes. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's out of Fort Meade. Joe Meggie passed away a couple of years ago, but he left with, you know, left behind his technology, his patents. And there's a great team on board there that are, that are proceeding to improve upon and commercialize that, that those activities. And so there's a— go ahead.

No, finish. Go ahead.

Yep. So there's—

it's hard when we're not in the same room to know when you're finished.

Right, right. So there's a great group down there that's working hard, you know, every day, both in the lab and in a plant, doing its thing to be able to take and manufacture a pure phosphoric acid with lower-grade phosphate rock and without any waste product at all, which is pretty cool.

Yeah, so how did he find his way to Fort Meade? Or is he a Polk County native? Or what's his story and his connection to Polk?

He was a serial inventor. He worked for Occidental Chemical.

Did he invent Froot Loops?

Butthump Puff. That's right. Wah wah wah.

Just checking to see if you're still here, Rob.

A serial inventor is better than a serial killer, right?

There you go. Yeah, for sure.

Way to lower the bar there, Tip.

We're just going right down the tube drop.

That's where I'm most comfortable, so it's fine.

So, so Joe had, uh, oh my gosh, a scad of patents, and, uh, he had commercialized a number of other processes that were important in the titanium industry and other things. He was a material scientist of great repute and a brilliant guy, and it was a pleasure to be around him. So, you know, we hope as much for his legacy as anything else to be able to commercialize this process and really make it something that is a world changer.

It's so fascinating to me, and again, this is why I'm grateful to Mark Codd for pointing this out to me and knowing that, you know, right here in my own, you know, network, I could reach out to somebody with so much information to connect us to the story of phosphate in Polk County, but also to this innovation and this tech and this legacy that you're talking about and how many great stories we have right here in our own backyard. And so I'm just— I'm listening and I'm like, I'm wanting you to just keep talking about these stories because it's so cool to me.

There are, and I mean, some really brilliant people over the years have made very significant contributions to the technology and to the commercial enterprise that is phosphate. —today worldwide. And today, of course, what's happening, as Florida used to be about 75% of the phosphate industry in the United States and about 25% of the global phosphate industry. So what's happened now is another country is taking over the role, the more dominant role. in terms of reserves. While today China is the number one producer of phosphate rock, they have fairly short-lived reserves. But the country that has the most long-lived reserves, as a matter of fact, three-quarters of the reserves of phosphate rock worldwide, is Morocco. Hmm. So, Jeremy Grantham, uh, is a famous investor He's very into fertilizer. He talks about the Great Nutrient Wars of 2030, in which basically everything except Morocco has been mined out and everybody will be fighting over Moroccan phosphate rock reserves in order to feed their people. Wow. So I, with tongue halfway in cheek, working with NovaFoss and other activities, would say that, what do I do? Well, I'm actively engaged in preventing the Great Nutrient Wars of 2030.

Well, we appreciate you contributing to the community in the ways that you have. And I'm going to shift a little bit. I mean, not really, but I really wanted to just kind of take a minute and say thank you to you for your presence in the entrepreneurial and small business discussion that we've had because listening to you now, it's all starting to connect. So Christina Kreiser Jackson, introduced you to me and told me that you had some experience in entrepreneurialism and that you had a startup and all of these things, but we really didn't have a chance to really talk through much of that until today. And what I have found in Polk County, in my space and in the general discussion of small business, is that it takes people— you referred to yourself off the show as a fossil, and I don't think that that's true, But it takes people with a strong reputation and a lot of experience and wisdom believing in the future of entrepreneurship and small business to come back and say, hey, we need to do some things that maybe we haven't done before. We have to try some new things. And you're an innovator, you're a disruptor. I mean, that was part of the discussion that really piqued my interest when I first met you was you were talking about how we needed to disrupt kind of the status quo of how United Way had been operating for so many years, and you've done a great job of kind of leading being on the board. So can we just chat a little bit about your philosophies on just how leadership is evolving and how in your position, how you're supporting, giving back, and working to make the community stronger?

Yeah, so Central Florida is a really special place and my wife and I and my family have really enjoyed being around here. And this Nova FAS assignment I was a corporate guy for most of my career. And hooking up with Joe Meggi and understanding late in life the consequence, the positive consequence of disruption, that oftentimes negatively connoted word, the positive effect of disruption. On our community and on our world. You know, there's a great book out there called The Innovator's Dilemma. And The Innovator's Dilemma describes a situation in which really big, well-managed companies sow the seeds of their own destruction by not paying attention to disruptive influences that they, you know, could make the most of. Great example, Kodak. You know, who invented digital photography? Kodak. But they didn't pay the right attention to it and it destroyed them. Well, they're still around, but it's a different company. So, I think, you know, this whole thing about disruption really, I mean, and the positive influences on it and how each of us as individuals have disruption sewn into the sinew of our bones. You know, we as sapiens, as Homo sapiens, have in our DNA, what do we do to do things differently, much better, and disrupt the status quo onto something that is certainly better and more effective, more profitable, more efficient, more everything. More inclusive too. Absolutely. Because once you embrace disruption, you understand the value of diversity. And you don't get that disruption if you don't listen to different voices.

And if we're operating in silos, which we have in spite of the technology, the technology is really designed or could really connect us even more. And yet, something in our psyche, something in our habits is just continuing to keep us kind of operating independently or separately, or maybe with some territorialism in our minds. But I think that disruption is a part of bringing those thought leaders together to create a common good. And I think that that's where I align so well with you. And I'm so glad that I've gotten to know you.

Well, I tell you, when I was sort of the corporate animal, right? So oftentimes in corporations, during the time that I was that animal, it was about, you know, "Hey, this is the way we do things. And, you know, we don't, you know, stay within the lines, will you please?" And I think that, you know, this notion of disruption and the light bulb going on in my head of how positive it can be, you know, this generation that is coming on stream and coming to leadership today, They get that. And we're going to be a much better society as a result of it. Yep. I agree.

I like the optimism too. One of the things I wanted to add, and not to circle back to the phosphate, but—

Sorry, you know me, I get into these things and I just want to hug you, Tip. I want to just give you high fives, but we can go back to phosphate now.

You just, you just took the train off the rails. I'm just kidding. No, no, all of that is— Tipp is more than just phosphate, obviously. But, um, one of the things I found really interesting when I moved here and found out about the importance of phosphate and how big it was here was, unlike a lot of other types of mining, which is extremely toxic or, or damaging to the environment, there's a lot that can be done to reclimate previous phosphate mines. And when I found out that the golf resort Streamsong was basically a phosphate mine that they had turned into this beautiful golf resort, I thought I was fascinated by that. I mean, that's incredible to me. And then to find out that you were actually working as part of that mine when it was back when it was a mine, that's really neat. So I really think it's not every kind of mine that you can do that with. What other examples of— I heard once Imperial Lakes used to be a phosphate mine. Part of me wonders how much, if most of this stuff wasn't at some point.

Yeah, so that, that mine at Streamsong was the Payne Creek Mine. We were mining that when I was there in the early '90s. And, and today, once a, once an acre of land is mined and once the mining activity is done, it needs to be reclaimed within 2 years through revegetation. And typically it's acre for acre, type for type. So if you mine up an area that is 10% wetlands, then you have to replace at least 10% wetlands. So there's a lot of technology involved in the reclamation and Mosaic and Nutrien, which are the Florida miners, have made enormous progress in terms of land reclamation. Quite an incredible story to see that. And, you know, hey, is it perfect? And is phosphate perfect? Of course not. And you won't have to look very far to find critics of the phosphate industry. And many of the criticisms are absolutely legitimate. Some of them are maybe a little bit overstated, but I can tell you that as an exec with Agrico Chemical Company and then IMC Agrico, That was top of mind every day, was doing the right thing for Reclamation and doing the right thing for chemical processing to not affect the environment any more than permitted and any more than absolutely necessary. But yeah, there's lots of— the TECO power plant down in the pulp power plant, I actually sold that to TECO as a mine site and they put a power plant on it. And indeed, Grasslands was a phosphate rock mine. And up the Saddle Creek, all that Saddle Creek was sort of pre-Reclamation area, but that Saddle Creek area is also, was also a phosphate rock mine named Saddle Creek. The Reclamation story is kind of interesting. Pre-1975, reclamation wasn't required, and the industry took advantage of that and it was not a pretty look. Moonscapes. You can read about moonscapes and things like that. It was really a short-sighted perspective on mining. But post-1975, the state got very involved, and rightly so, with reclamation and requiring reclamation. And the state and the industry got together and found a way of funding reclamation for pre-1975 land. Through something called a severance tax. So the industry paid a severance tax, um, and on every ton of phosphate rock mined, and part of that went into what's called the Non-Mandatory Lands Trust Fund. And that trust fund was used, uh, so that landowners who had mined land that were mined pre-1975, they could tap that fund and reclaim the land to state standards. So I think, you know, there was a really good example of, although it probably didn't feel like a partnership back then when it was going, was going through, looking back on it, it looked like a partnership between the state and the industry.

That's really neat though. It's nice to see that that's something that we can make a priority here, even though it may not have always been a priority. But, you know, you hear from around the world, there's all kinds of mining operations that just absolutely decimate wetlands and forests and, and habitats for not just animals, but people as well. And they're kind of left these barren wastelands. So it's nice to know that when it's being done in our backyard, there is such an effort to, to turn it back into something that is, is beneficial. And if you like golf, it's right up your alley, too. Yeah.

Well, you know, if you're mining, If you're mining in the Garden of Eden, you better do it right.

That's true. That's true. I imagine at some point, even without those taxes, somebody would figure out that they could buy that land and convert it into something, 'cause they're not making any more land.

That's right. There's a very interesting quick story there. Phosphate really got cranked up in the 1880s here in Florida. It was discovered in the 1880s. By 1895, there were 250 phosphate companies trying to get land to mine phosphate, which is all of a sudden a valuable material used for fertilizer and other things. The saying was going around at the time that many a Florida cracker went to bed a poor man and woke up a capitalist because his land had gone from $5 an acre to $300 an acre. Wow, it's funny.

That's kind of like the internet boom. For sure.

For sure. What I find exciting, you know, here, and you take a look at Catapult and, you know, what a forward-thinking activity, you know, for a city to engage in really industrial-strength sponsorship of entrepreneurs. And I think it's making a big difference in this region. Well, we're mining, we're mining talent.

I mean, you know, keeping the thread here, you know, look, this is, this is the piece of the puzzle that makes it so important to us that we're not just letting go of talent. You know, one of the number one exports should not be our talented young professionals or people graduating from our universities. And, and mining that talent means that we actually have to give them something to stay here for. And that entrepreneurship connection is a good way. It's kind of like—

I'll bring it full circle too. It's kind of like the reclamation process. If you just, you know, raise the talent here and mine it all out and goes everywhere else, there's nothing left here. So we have to find a way to bring that and use that here locally. So see, I can do it too. Chrissanne Long.

Good job, Tip. Do you want final words before we wrap it up?

No, it's been fun. Lots, lots going on. And it's a vital industry, not only here in Florida but around the world. I know that personally I'm very happy to be a part of an entrepreneurial community that is trying to make a difference in our region. And it's a blast. And it's a blast coming into contact with you, Chrissanne Long, and great to meet you, Rob. And likewise, we look forward to many more interactions in the future.

Yeah, we're looking forward to it. And keep us posted on anything that you think we need to give an update on as things go forward. Over in Fort Meade.

Will do. And Rob, sorry we've given you a bit of an editing challenge with these ins and outs.

Yeah, just for our listening audience, we did have a few technical challenges. So if you experience a little bit of breakup in the conversation, that might be a good way to explain it.

And if you don't, I'm really good at editing.

And if you hear nothing, then you know how good Rob is. So, well, thanks for listening everybody. And remember, we have a new episode each week, so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And remember to leave us a review. We promise to read every one. You can always find all of our episodes at elevatepolk.com. And if there's something you want to hear about, just like Mark Codd, um, reach out to us at Elevate Polk on Facebook.