More than Reduce, Reuse and Recycle | Grace Donovan & Carol Mitchell-Lin w/ guest Julie Conti

Hi, and welcome to the Industry 4.0 Club. I'd like to wish a good local time to everyone. Before we start, I'll let you know a little bit about us and today's conversation. The main purpose of the I-40 Club is to accelerate the evolution to Industry 4.0 by having engaging discussions among innovators, leaders, and manufacturing professionals. This is Women in Manufacturing, our Tuesday conversation with the focus on tech and manufacturing. This is a space where we touch on the perspectives of women in the industry. We'd like to welcome you to 2024 and our first series of the year on sustainability. Over the next 3 months, we'll introduce you to women with unique perspectives on sustainability in manufacturing and Industry 4.0. This is our first in the series, People and Sustainability, and it's titled More Than Reuse, Reduce, and Recycle. I'm Carol Mitchell-Lim, an Industry 4.0 Club co-founder, and for over 6 years I've been creating content for I4D adoption in manufacturing. When I'm not supporting my fellow co-founders, I'm a content marketing specialist at Fuse Data in Toronto, Canada, and what we do at Fuse Data is help leaders with their data modernization with people-centric data products. I'd like to introduce my co-host and fellow I-40 Club co-founder, Grace Donovan. Hi, Grace.

Good afternoon. Good morning. For me, it's the middle of the morning. I'm tuning in from La Grande, Oregon. As Carol mentioned, I'm also a fellow co-founder of the Industry 4.0 Club, and I am currently serving as the executive director of the Rural Engagement and Vitality Center, which works with universities here in Eastern Oregon and communities to create a more vibrant and prosperous future for rural Oregon. So I'm really excited to kick off the new year with you guys.

Thanks, Grace. And yes, today we're pleased to have Julie Conti here as our special guest. Julie is a co-founder of Risenet Consulting, a woman-owned executive and search consulting company. Hi, Julie.

Hi, good, good day, good afternoon, good morning. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

We're really happy to have you.

Yeah, thank you for— I'm sorry.

It's okay, go ahead. Just saying, as Carol and I were both about to say, we're really happy to have you on with us and to kick off 2024 with the Industry 4.0 Club Women in Manufacturing. So we'd love it if you could kick off the conversation by telling us a little bit about yourself, kind of give us an idea of your experience, what has led you to where you are today, and kind of the evolution of your career.

Yes, definitely. Well, as I mentioned before, I'm co-founder of Riseinit Consulting. And for the past 15 years, I've been in the recruiting industry. And 4 years ago, we founded Riseinit. And now we specialize in the manufacturing space. And so we help manufacturers fill those much-needed positions, the plant managers, supervisors, engineers, maintenance technicians, electrical control technicians, as well as finance and accounting positions. Those are very important in manufacturing as well— controllers, inventory analysts, and even C-suite. And so we partner with manufacturers, which are our clients, and we join their in-house recruiting team kind of combined forces to, to build a really strong team in order to recruit talent efficiently and quickly to fill those much-needed production roles.

Excellent. And how did you get into recruiting? Because so you were a STEM major in college, biology and chemistry. So what was the evolution from kind of a very science-focused career to Um, one that's maybe a little more social coded, right? Right. That relies heavily on people skills. And that's not to say they're not mutually exclusive.

Well, definitely. Well, my, um, my father was a salesman and my stepdad is a salesman. And so I grew up saying, I'm not going to be in sales. And so I went into the medical field. I got my biology chemistry degree. And I did, um, I started off in cancer research in the lab. It was just me and my test tube, and I was going insane.

Mm-hmm.

You know, you have to go, um, it's the, the track is, you know, PhD track. It didn't fit my life at the time. I had my bachelor's degree. I was ready to, you know, start making money, not be stuck in a lab. So I thought, well, What's the best thing I can do here, you know, to increase, you know, my annual income? Let's go into medical sales, right? So I was working with a major medical manufacturer for about 5 years in the OR. I was actually teaching doctors and surgeons how to use our equipment. I was guiding them through degrees. And, and then that transitioned into, you know, as you get married and have kids, you know, that didn't always— wasn't the best fit for me anymore. And I found a job with a healthcare organization as a recruiter. So I kind of transferred. I was already in healthcare, transitioned to hiring doctors instead of training doctors. And so I went to recruiting. And then as, as things evolved, you know, my, my husband's position was in, in manufacturing, and then my partners were in manufacturing. So we transitioned to manufacturing. And that's how we ended up here in this space.

Awesome. Thanks for sharing. I always like kind of seeing the evolutions and of course, like understanding the factors that influence Someone's curious.

Yeah.

Now, originally, Julie, I was going to ask you a question about, you know, the first time a manufacturer mentioned a role in sustainability. But I think maybe the better question would be to ask, what kind of conversations are you having with manufacturers? about sustainability from a people perspective?

Right.

Well, what we're finding and what we're coming across is a lot of companies, they want to have a sustainability program. And the major Fortune 500s, you know, they have programs in place, but the smaller manufacturers are the ones or some that are, you know, have been manufacturing for years, they, when they're trying to start their sustainability, it's all, you know, it doesn't bring revenue, it just, it takes revenue. So it's a hard transition to make. So we're finding that people with their, you know, their own kind of personal social responsibility social initiative, they bring forth a sustainability program within their own company. So they like, hey, you know, they write a proposal, present it, and get a budget for, you know, recycling in the break room or on the manufacturing floor. And, you know, they follow that program in place and it becomes successful. And they pick another project, maybe changing out the light bulbs. to LEDs, get— write a proposal, an action plan, and get a budget, get that project in place, you know, and then they take some courses online. And they, they become the sustainability thought leader for their company. And so they— it kind of is like a transition, you know, most people are mid-career transitioning into sustainability since it's becoming to the forefront so much now, where just a few short years ago it wasn't such a priority.

It sounds like there's, um, depending on the size of the company, there seems to be a roadmap when it comes to sustainability and, and the people needed to make that happen. Fair to say that it's being done internally first until they get to a— until it gets to a point in maturity that, okay, now let's start hiring internally or bringing in—

Yeah, so I see it happening in 2 different ways. It kind of depends on the revenue base of the company, if— and then also what that company's competitors are doing. If you have a manufacturing facility and you don't have competitors kind of beating you at the game of sustainability, you can build it internally and slowly. But if you have competitors that are, you know, have a huge sustainability program posted on their website, they have all these community initiatives. And so then you may have to hire, you know, a sustainability consulting company to come in and get your program in place rather quickly.

Sorry. So when a manufacturer maybe approaches you for advice on adding roles, if again they're kind of looking for some of those external guidance, where do you typically start? You know, does the organization have a sustainability policy? Do you, if they don't, do you have any input on helping guiding them to put one in place? Or do you use that as Carol mentioned, kind of your roadmap? Right.

We don't necessarily help manufacturers put their own sustainability program in place. We can help to communicate what type of individuals may be needed, what type of skill sets would be a good fit for someone. to take a sustainability role within the company.

And perhaps as you're working to find the right person, because sustainability careers, I think, are coming into their own. It's something that, you know, maybe wasn't as mainstream a couple of years back, but is now much more of a career path. I know of universities in my region that are now promoting like green careers and so very focused on sustainability, even natural resources. But if you're recruiting for kind of hard-to-fill positions, even at the executive level, what kind of transferable skills are you maybe looking for, or, um, things on a resume that indicate to you that this person is going to be a good fit in this role for sustainability? Because no one majored in it at this point, right?

Exactly. And so some of the skills that are really good is Very, very strong communication skills. Very complex scientific concepts are going to need to be explained to the board or written into proposals. There's going to be— there's a lot of grant writing opportunity to get funding for sustainability programs. There's also just, you know, general emails and meetings and phone calls. Talking about sustainability and, and, you know, it's, it's not mainstream, as you mentioned. So it's every email's an opportunity for educating, you know, the reader. It could be your CEO, it could be, you know, your front-end worker, you know, explaining that, you know, we need to— don't throw this in the trash, it's got to— we have to separate it out, you know. take to the email to your CEO. This is what we need to implement here on the manufacturing floor. There's a lot of space for education and also creating those community educational initiatives as well, reaching out to the community, having them involved in your company's sustainability. So communication is key.

Another Pardon me, I didn't mean to interrupt. Keep going.

Another trait would be critical thinking. So, you know, you have a company that's operating, bringing in revenue, and you've got to combine a sustainability initiative to kind of pair them to move forward. So there has to be, you know, someone with creative thinking skills in order to come up with new and ideas to create these sustainability solutions. And then a third piece would be being very knowledgeable. You want someone who's, who stays current on environmental issues as well as governmental regulations.

Yeah, thank you. I, I I appreciate a lot of that because I personally like to focus on transferable skills because so much of what we, you know, go into the workforce in is not what we majored in. I think that's probably the case. You know, I'm taking an educated guess that's the case for all of us here. But understanding kind of the core skills that we can always refine to kind of launch us into a career that we're excited about or make some career pivots. you know, to fit our life better. It's always really important to understand kind of what skills are needed in certain positions. So I appreciate your insight there.

Thank you. We have— I just wanted to shout out to Mike, who actually asked the same question.

I know. I kind of stole it out of Mike's mouth.

But we do have from Rhiannon, thank you, Rhiannon, who shared that, yes, the universities are starting to get on board with sustainable business degrees, University of Oregon. Thank you, Rhiannon. And Mike does— did submit another question for us. Maybe we could go to that question. Julie, which is which industries based on who's reaching out to you are leading sustainability? So within manufacturing, what kind of segmentation are you seeing? Oh, I think—

oh, we're back.

We're back. There we go. Did you hear that question? Did you catch that question, Julie?

I did not hear you. I did not hear the question.

That's okay. Let's put it back up again. It's from Mike. Which industries, based upon who's reaching out to you, are leading in sustainability efforts? So how is manufacturing itself segmented in terms of sustainability?

Which industries are leading in sustainability efforts? The big one is oil and gas is what I've seen. You know, other manufacturing is— they're coming into their own. I've noticed some pharmaceuticals are, are joining the game as well, but definitely oil and gas is leading the efforts.

What are some of the specific initiatives that you're seeing kind of within that industry? And that makes sense to me, right, based on your geographical location, kind of, that's a huge industry. And so it makes a lot of sense to me that you'd see a lot of, um, kind of movements in that space. Um, but I'm curious kind of what types of initiatives are at the forefront for this industry in particular.

I didn't hear the first part of your question.

Oh, I think it was just commenting that based on geography, it makes sense that oil and gas is kind of where you're seeing a lot of these types of sustainability initiatives, but just kind of looking for a little more specificity in terms of what are the initiatives that you're seeing Within that industry, right?

I see them trying to generate energy from alternative sources, whether it be manure or plastic or other, other types of, you know, the French fry grease, you know, just creating energy from where it was not before. Without, you know, not using natural resources. You know, the, the corn to diesel has been in place for years. So, you know, just regenerating right now, instead of even taking something like corn to make fuel, taking something that's not— that's waste, that's trash, and making it into fuel.

Very cool. That's— it's nice to see that that's kind of going a little more mainstream. Um, I used to work in a, in a restaurant, then we'd have some people come by, um, you know, asking for our old, you know, fryer grease essentially, um, because they were like in the early days of experimentation of using that as fuel. So that's neat to see that that's taking on, um, like larger scale.

Yes.

So I'll kind of pop in again. For what advice would you have for people in manufacturing, kind of alluding to my earlier question, who are interested in pivoting into a role in sustainability? So we talked a little bit about transferable skills, but especially for the younger generation, Gen Z in particular, who are in university now or just entering the workforce. What would— or even who are thinking about like long-term a career in sustainability, if they're kind of in the position where they're just applying to college, what would— what advice would you have for maybe the youngest cohort in manufacturing if they want to develop a career in sustainability?

Yes, that's a very good question. Definitely a bachelor's degree in— with an environmental focus or a focus on sustainability. I know there's, there's a lot of programs out there, but it can be like sustainability and agribusiness, sustainability and different. So it's hard to find one program that encompasses all sustainability. So if you focus on environmental, a bachelor's with an environmental focus, and then pair that with a master's in business administration, In compliance, economics, if you can find one with a sustainability focus, that would be a good path to take. I know that right now, that's the path my daughter's been trying to take. She has an environmental anthropology degree, and she's been looking for a master's program to, to pair her bachelor's with. And she's found some really good programs, but in Europe.

Mm-hmm.

And so she's, she's trying to make her way to Europe to take those, to get a master's program there. And then on the home front here, I was invited to speak to the local Rotary Club here in Dallas. And after, during the same meeting, they presented a scholarship award winner, and he just graduated from the Air Force. Academy, and they're, they're giving him a scholarship. They're sending him to the same program my daughter's looking at in Europe so that he can learn sustainability, come back and teach the Air Force how to be sustainable.

Awesome.

So there's a lot of initiatives I think we have to learn from our European partners at this point because they've been doing this a lot longer than the United States. But the United States is catching up fast.

Also, just shout out to local Rotary programs like doling out scholarships. I'm also the recipient of a Rotary scholarship when I was in high school way back when. I was too. Yay, Rotary! Yeah, they can appreciate Rotary. That's awesome. And I think, you know, if someone maybe has already graduated too, just to kind of like hearken back to our discussion there on on transferable skills. You know, you mentioned grant writing and being able to tap into whether that's state or federal funding. Right now there's a lot of federal dollars that are available, um, to, you know, promote infrastructure, which could be like a huge part of sustainability. Is like, is our building going to sustain our operations in the future? Is it energy efficient? Um, you know, is this building one that we've been in for a really, really long time and, you know, it's drafty and all sorts of, you know, there's a whole bunch of considerations around just like the infrastructure. So All is to say is that for anyone who's looking to make these pivots, I think, you know, having a lot of experience in writing and writing concisely in particular, and again, kind of going to strong communication skills. So debate club is, you know, one experience that I wish that I would have been able to access because I think it would have done so much for me. So I would just offer those 2 pieces of advice myself.

Yeah. Excellent, good advice.

I, I, I'd like to add to that, you know, Grace, um, and you mentioned this too, Julie, being able to talk to the board, being able to talk to, to the people that are, are making the final rubber stamp, um, and, and finding a way to, to talk to them with the language that they will relate to so you can make your point. And I think I've seen it, seen it and had conversations around that same topic. Even people at C-level struggle with that. So I think along the way there's a lot of room for people. That's probably one of the most difficult things to learn is to be persuasive.

Yes.

No, no, Julie, we're, we're really happy to have you here at the beginning of the year. And what, you know, uh, asking experts their thoughts of what's coming up in the year ahead is a hot topic right now, so we'd really like to take advantage of that. So, um, where are you seeing trends in the job market in manufacturing as a whole as it relates to you. But we're— we'd also like to know within sustainability what, you know, what you're seeing, what you think is going to happen in 2024.

Right. Well, with the supply chain disruption that's happened over the last several years, We are seeing a lot of reshoring. Manufacturers are bringing manufacturing back into, back into the United States. And then that's amazing, right? But what happens there, we have candidate labor shortage. So that's, that's the challenges that we're facing now is finding the talent. the candidates, the people to work all those new manufacturing jobs. And, you know, manufacturing isn't as, uh, you know, in your grandfather's generation, you get the manufacturing job and, you know, to keep it, and that's, that's your life. That's, that's really not the opinion of, of people anymore. So it's a challenge to get people to take those roles, to be happy and and thrive in those roles with a great work-life balance. Like a lot of manufacturing, you know, first, second, third shift. So, you know, those are hard to find or hard to fill. And so I'm seeing, you know, a lot of reskilling of workers and then also raising wages and being very creative with benefits packages, you know, finding what's most important to the candidate. and trying to match them. You know, if it's someone that's providing health insurance for their family or is having a new baby and they want an extra week off, you know, to be with the baby, if they can be creative in their benefits packages, you can gain talent that way. Manufacturers, I really feel they need to partner with a very strong recruiting partner so they can be competitive. to get the talent that they're going to need in 2024?

You know, you're right about the benefits part. It's, it's not always just about the salary, the income. And something Grace and I talk about over and over again is the flexibility that especially women need. They want to be in the workforce, and maybe even they have kids at school, but they really are looking for employers that will give them some flexibility so they can basically work while the kids are at school, for example. Are you seeing employers being open as far as allowing a more flexible, empathetic work-life?

Well, I do see that they recognize there's a need for that. But also on the flip side, you know, the manufacturing floor is 24/7. There's, you know, there's not a, there's not a remote opportunity there. There's not, um, so I'm gonna leave at 3 instead of 5. It's, you know, it's, there's not, it's a, it's a challenging space. And so they're, they're trying to create schedules. That are flexible and rotating so that, you know, if they do have to work 12 hours for 3 or 4 days, then they get 3 or 4 days off with their families. And they might have to work Saturday and Sunday, but then they get another Saturday and Sunday off. So it's not— I do see a lot of flexibility in the scheduling. And she's trying to create those work-life balances.

So we have a few questions from the audience, and I think there's a couple that are speaking directly to this little conversation that we're having right now. So Patrick asks, is the labor shortage that you speak of direct labor on the floor, managerial, or both?

That's a very good question. It's the labor shortage that is, is challenging is those with very specified Needed specified skills that have to have an education for. So like the robotics positions, or the ones that can speak certain languages, you know, the ones that can— so, you know, on a manufacturing floor, everything's automated. There's a lot of robotics. So it's those maintenance technicians that have to be able to fix those That equipment. And, and those skills are— they're not learned by apprenticeship. They're, they're, they're learned in college. And so to get enough candidates with those skills that you can put on the floor from midnight to 6 AM with no supervision, it's going to be able to keep those machines running all night long. Those, those are the type of candidates that are really hard to find. Managers are, that are overseeing those workers, those are not quite as difficult to find, although finding one that can manage, you know, 30, 40, 50 employees versus 12, you know, those are harder to find.

So you also— so RiseNet started in 2020, which was almost like the beginning of where we saw like a really severe labor shortage in manufacturing. Obviously COVID had a lot to do with that. How have you seen the labor shortage like change over the past almost like now coming into your 4th year in business in that time?

Well, what we've seen is there's a lot of new industries that have really developed over these last few years that have kind of brought back the, I guess, the pride in being in manufacturing and being one of these maintenance techs. So some of our clients have been manufacturing for years, and now, you know, they're needing these candidates with specialized skills. And these candidates have been working at Amazon, Texas Instruments, HelloFresh. So these major Fortune 500 companies have brought back the pride in working, you know, doing these jobs. And, and, and they've brought a lot of opportunity for people to, to take the time to get an education. Because there are jobs available. There's a lot of jobs available at Amazon and HelloFresh. But then as, you know, these, um, candidates want to grow, you know, there might not be room for growth in their facilities, so then they start to look outwards. So it is, um, it's kind of like a refresh that's happening.

It's almost like manufacturers are becoming tech companies.

Really, they really are, because manufacturing is becoming very tech.

I have a lot of thought on that. I have a lot of thoughts on that trend, but we'll leave that for another conversation.

I hope— yeah, I hope I didn't cause too much.

Oh no. It's— I think like there's a lot of adopting technology, which is really beneficial, but tech companies operate fundamentally different than manufacturing companies. And I think there's And there's— it's very tempting, I think, to rebrand as a tech company in manufacturing, which I kind of look at as like almost like a Tesla model. Like he's a tech company, but in automotive or a tech company in space, but still lives through manufacturing hell. And that's a rabbit hole that I am circling. But kind of to your point that you mentioned, like a lot of— there's a lot of evolutions and there's shifts happening in the industry. David asked, so like in addition to his previous question, which was, are companies exploring or moving towards like wind technology, for example, looking at sustainable technologies? With car companies ramping up their electric car offerings, what, if any, sustainability initiatives are evolving in their manufacturing processes? And this might be contingent on your experience with kind of electrification and automotive, but curious if you have anything to contribute here.

Right. I don't have— Any direct experience working with automotive manufacturing in electrical vehicles, so I'm not sure what they're, what they're doing on the floor. I, you know, I've read the articles of, of getting the, the minerals they need for the batteries and then trying to find a solution to uptake the batteries at the end of the battery life. But as far as sustainability on the manufacturing floor in EV, I don't have a lot of experience in that.

And thank you. And so I'm kind of sorry for the curveball in that case. But I— you know, you make some really excellent points there that, you know, as we transition to new technologies, what is sustainable for this new technology kind of changes, right? So with EV, now we have to talk about like rare earth minerals and mining. And so the conversation around sustainability is always gonna be kind of shifting in terms of, you know, what are we doing now that's gonna protect our resources in the future and make sure that we're being efficient?

Yeah.

Which I think leads me right into my next question of asking guests like in this series, Around the kind of the pillars of sustainability. So we are all very familiar with— was it reduce, reuse, recycle, which is kind of the 3 R's that we allude to, the big 3 that we allude to? But there's also repair, rental, recovery, regenerate. I've seen like refuse, rethink, repurpose. There's a whole bunch of R's out there that lend themselves to sustainability. So do you have any one of these tenets that means the most to you? And if so, why?

I really have to say the regenerate with a kind of a reinvent twist to it. There's a lot of people that are reinventing themselves, reinventing their career, pivoting in mid-career into sustainability. Since, you know, when they were in college, it wasn't even a topic of conversation. And but now it's much needed out there. And then also companies, you know, manufacturers that are, you know, they're, they're operating, they have policies in place, practices in place to generate revenue. So to come in and put— throw a curveball into making that process sustainable, they do have to reinvent the way they do things. They have to regenerate old processes into new processes in order to join the movement into sustainability.

Carol, I was— I'm curious if you have, like, kind of in your understanding and knowledge of sustainability, if there's kind of like a re that you like the most or that really speaks to you?

Something that I've always been interested in is reproduct. Reproduct, I guess, is a good word. It's, for me, it's when I envision a waste product That a company creates through manufacturing process, and they reproduct that waste. So they create a new product from that waste, so they can at least say through their sustainability efforts, like Julie mentioned, it's not always on the cost side. Actually, it can eventually become a revenue, additional revenue, a new product. So those are use cases I've seen that are very interesting.

Yeah, I hadn't heard that term, but I understand exactly what you mean. And I know— I actually know a startup in California that has like done a tremendous job building off like reproducts, essentially taking a waste byproduct and turning it into some really cool products. And I know they're not the only one. But I also like, Julie, kind of your mention of reinventing. And I think while, you know, while you were sharing kind of around just reinventing processes and kind of looking at, looking at things in new ways, I think the thought that kept coming to my mind was just like finding new value streams and reinventing around that. Because I think for something to be sustainable, I think my first understanding of sustainability was like, can this support itself in the future? So whether that's capacity or financially, that like was something I learned in college and it just kind of clicked in my head. I was like, oh, you know, for something to be sustainable. And I was working for a nonprofit at the time, which was not a very sustainable career choice for myself, right?

Right.

There was, so it really clicked of like, oh, this has to be financially sustainable. There has to be value. There has to be some benefit in it. And I think that's like a big— for a long time, you know, companies weren't kind of investing in sustainability, is my understanding. And as— because that was part of their values, not necessarily because they derived a lot of value from it. But now we're seeing a lot more creativity and companies able to find new value streams and really being incentivized to be sustainable, whether that's from upgrading facilities, again, investing in talent so that you're not constantly going through around a revolving door of having to hire and recruit new people all the time, because we know that takes a lot of resources. So investing in sustainability in a lot of different ways where they see value, where that's become more clear, kind of reinventing the wheel in order to be a wheel that's going to run for a really long time, right? So that's a, that's a re that I hadn't come across before, that reinventing. So thank you.

You're welcome.

Oh, Carol, you're muted.

Yes, there's the, the rain is hitting the windows, like snow is hitting the windows. It's really loud. Um, now usually, Julie, before we, um, when we finish off with one of our guests, we go through, uh, go around and we mention our final thoughts that we'd like to take away. And we'll go through, we'll give you the last word for today. And I think I'll go first because I really liked the reinvent. And I liked what you did, Julie, by not just applying the reinvention to the manufacturing side and processes and the business model, but also to the people. how the people can also be part of that reinvention and how they see themselves and their career paths. I really like that and like to take away that. Grace?

Thanks, Carol. I'm really sticking on the transferable skills, and I think because I've had a couple of friends and peers recently move into careers in sustainability, and a huge part of that for them has been their ability to communicate effectively, their ability to, to like translate language from different areas of a company. So it's one thing to, you know, perspective from the shop floor, management perspective, and being able to, you know, kind of get everyone excited about and behind an initiative. And being an effective communicator and being able to code switch for your audience is really important in that aspect. And so I just encourage everyone, if you know, to be effective in your role, those are really excellent questions to have and— or excuse me, skills to have. And I think I would say like sustainability is also the work. So it's really, it's really great to see like sustainability from the side in terms of like recruiting for positions in sustainability. But also I think one of the things that I've been thinking about is that a lot of times it's everyone's job. Like there's so much that you can do to improve sustainability, whether that's you know, just reducing waste on the manufacturing shop floor. And everyone's perspective is valuable in this sense. Like, we all see a different part of the value stream and the operation in a company. And being able to kind of communicate that effectively to management, to your team, you know, to the shop floor about why we're going after this and how it's really going to benefit the company, you know, the people that are involved here. You know, everyone has a role to play in sustainability, not just the positions that might have like the titles, Chief Sustainability Officer, for example. So that's maybe not the most polished or finished thought, but that it's really everyone's opportunity to take a piece out of and support.

Excellent. Thank you, Grace.

Yeah.

Okay, Julie, we're great. We're giving you the, your, the final thought for today.

Final thoughts for today, I think, is, um, it's definitely with, uh, with the REEVs, right? We have, um, you mentioned 7, but we— let's not forget about the reshoring and going to our labor market. And, and we don't want, you know, the United States to lose our edge in In manufacturing. So we all need to work together to make sure we can get this new generation in, keep, keep the labor shortages low, right? We get people in their manufacturing jobs, accommodate their family life balance. And I think manufacturers need to realize there's a, there's a human factor at play. You know, the, the men are becoming more family-oriented than they used to be. You know, they're— they want to be there for their kids' recital at 5. They want, you know, they want to be a part of their family's lives. They're not just there to make the money because the, the wife is working also. So I think, um, you know, manufacturers, they have to have this mental shift in order to get the talent they need to draw them in and keep them engaged in their job and to create, you know, long-term employment from their employees. And by doing that, we can really build a strong manufacturing platform in the United States that is sustainable. Excellent.

That's a perfect way to end the That's a great way to end our first in the series. Thanks very much, Julie. We really appreciate having your knowledge and your expertise. Definitely not an area for comparison. And thanks, thanks for people in the audience who joined us in and submitted your questions.

Thanks.

Thank you very much for that. And for those who are listening, if you like having conversations like this and you want to get updates and notices of our upcoming conversations, um, live as well as in person, we encourage you to follow us on LinkedIn and subscribe to our Substack newsletter, Shaping the Future.

Thank you.

industryworldclub.com. And that's it. I wish everyone a great rest of their day.

Awesome. Thanks, Carol. Thank you, Julie.

Thank you, Carol. Thank you, Greg.