On this week's Industrial Talk we're onsite at FABTECH in Atlanta, GA and talking to Eduardo Venegas, Manager of Business Recruitment at Charlotte Regional Business Alliance and Nathaniel Dick, Business Development Manager with the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina (EDPNC) about "Partnerships and collaboration in your Economic Development efforts". Get the answers to your "Business Development" questions along with Nathaniel and Eduardo's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2022. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy!NATHANIEL DICK'S CONTACT INFORMATION:Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathaniel-dick-92794612/Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/edpnc/Company Website: https://edpnc.com/EDUARDO VENEGAS' CONTACT INFORMATION:Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eduardojvenegas/Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/charlotte-regional-business-alliance/Company Website: https://charlotteregion.com/PODCAST VIDEO:https://youtu.be/6ioR60yaO4ITHE STRATEGIC REASON "WHY YOU NEED TO PODCAST":OTHER GREAT INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES:NEOM: https://www.neom.com/en-usHitachi Vantara: https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/home.htmlIndustrial Marketing Solutions: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-marketing/Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/Industrial Dojo: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial_dojo/We the 15: https://www.wethe15.org/YOUR INDUSTRIAL DIGITAL TOOLBOX:LifterLMS: Get One Month Free for $1 – https://lifterlms.com/Active Campaign: Active Campaign LinkSocial Jukebox: https://www.socialjukebox.com/Industrial Academy (One Month Free Access And One Free License For Future Industrial Leader):Business Beatitude the BookDo you desire a more joy-filled, deeply-enduring sense of accomplishment and success? Live your business the way you want to live with the BUSINESS BEATITUDES...The Bridge connecting sacrifice to success. YOU NEED THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:SUMMARY KEYWORDSnorth carolina, people, state, region, industry, companies, eduardo, business, workforce, economic development, nathaniel, programs, conversation, charlotte, industrial, technical colleges, manufacturers, set, world, moving00:04Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's get our I00:22once again, thank you very much for joining the industrial talk. And thank you so much for your support, we as you can tell, there's chirping chirping going in the background, and we are broadcasting on site. FABTECH is the location. It is in Atlanta, Georgia. And and I gotta tell you, it is exciting. There's a lot of people roaming around. And once again, you know that this platform is dedicated to you, industry professionals all around the world, because you are bold, you are brave, you dare greatly, and you're making the world a better place. That's why this platform celebrates you each and every day. All right, in the hot seat, we have to a twofer. The manual, and Eduardo are in the house. And we're gonna be talking a little bit about whatever they want to talk about. But primarily economic development. Let's get cracking. You don't have to talk about that. If you don't want it.01:12It's important. We would love to talk about economics. Yeah, so let's make01:17it happen. Before we get into that conversation, let's level set for the listeners out there. Nathaniel to give us a little background of what makes you so passionate about what you do. How did you become a, you know this professionally? Your next, FYI. Right?01:33Yeah, of course. And so my background was engineering. I actually graduated I was born and raised in North Carolina, currently working in Gothenburg in North Carolina. After I graduate from university, I went abroad, sort of what university NC State Of course, engineering how ridiculous currently the third largest engineering school in the US just to add that to here's a plug, there you go. There you go. The also the number 17. I'll stop there, but I was. I went abroad for a while doing wastewater treatment, Brian will say surrounding industries helped set up companies and projects overseas. Really, really enjoyed that. And realize there's another aspect of making projects that setup process a whole lot easier. So they came back to North Carolina. Fortunately, North Carolina offers economic development in a partnership. So one of 17 states that use a partnership instead of a using the only the will say the Department of Commerce office or the governor's office, we're actually a public private partnership. So it gives a little bit more flexibility and the ability to actually travel, meet with companies personally and say, Hey, listen, this is how we can integrate your company into a particular region. This is what makes sense for your company. So it really attracted me to the area, or to the industry, per se. And I've been enjoying it ever since. Obviously, with the kind of development you work with all sorts of industries. Be here. FABTECH is great. This is one of my passions, but really is the that general being able to continue to learn, and then also assist companies as I once was on the other side of the spectrum, and really experienced that from this side. It's a hard act to follow. I'm sorry, Eduardo. I'm learning as I go. It's good. Give us a little background.03:17Yes. So I'm originally from Costa Rica. But I moved to the US 10 years ago, actually to the shadow region, for my MBA, and I started working with a small business development center, helping intrapreneurs in their communities, just helping them grow, and really in the whole region. And I did that for around eight years was was really rewarding. And up to this day, sometimes I drive down the road and say, like, help that business. And then after that I worked for a technical college or community college as a program manager for Business and Professional Development in workforce and economic development. We help them with customized training, all everything from real estate to leadership. You name it, you know, I managed those programs, before joining the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, which now I'm in business recruitment, which for the RIT for the Charlotte region, which includes, you know, 10 states in North Carolina, and for in South 1004:23counties tend to collaborate because work together. Yes, very much. So. A couple of questions, one, explain. Partnership. What does that mean? You say, Hey, we're, we're this is sort of a economic development arm, but we are in sort of that partnership. And what does that mean? That's different from others?04:45Yeah, of course. Well, I mean, there's no real will say perfect way to do economic development. A lot of states do it through the Department of Commerce, and that's great, and they have a lot of success dealing with that. A lot of times with government there tends to be an addition of red tape to As to maybe some bureaucracy, there also tends to be the very difficult to adapt to certain situations, I'll be at turnover setting KPI, even smaller instances, being a state employee, you have a prospect that comes into town and you take him to view a couple of sites, you want to buy him some alcohol, you can't do that. So your your hands are tied in certain areas, there's that doesn't quite have that flexibility. Being a public private partnership means you get that additional flexibility, you can be a little bit more adapting to the environment. And you can see how the industry changes and adapt to that adapt your workforce, adapt how you target and market. And of course, even the smaller things perhaps like employee turnover, setting higher KPIs, purchasing alcohol has made the wood much more accessible. Um, so currently, several states are will say using this model, as opposed to the traditional only to Department of Commerce to the governor's office model, do economic development. North Carolina has had some success doing this. And we're ranked number one by CNBC for the number one state to do business this past year. So building up that success, I would say the partnership model has been very good for us. It may not may or may not be the answer for every state. But from North Carolina, I believe it's been a very good read thus far.06:13You touched on upon a lot of points. Now, Eduardo, I want to sort of pull on the string of resource development, there's a churn and and how do you how do you sort of pull this economic development with all of the changes that are taking place within just the workforce workforce development coming and going? And how do you manage that?06:37Well, certainly, it's challenging, because like you said, it's constantly moving, it's constantly changing. But part of that is organization like the one that I work for, we try to coordinate those efforts, making sure that everyone understands, you know, what type of industries are coming into the region, what type of jobs are going to be needed in the next five or 10 years working with those universities, like I said, so they can build the programs that they need. So the companies can have the pipeline that we'll need eventually.07:09So in that case, you're working with just education to say, hey, we're working to get these type this type of business into our states. And we'll need this type of workforce. So let's work with you universities, college, technical colleges, and be able to create that workforce of that can satisfy that demand. Because that's a big part of what you guys do. Because it's one thing to say, Come on over, come on over business. But then if you don't have the workforce to help them07:47it's got you really hit on the head there. 100% very much, though, a very different outreach, maybe four or five years ago to get common development. You got there and you'd, you'd sell the the taxes. So incent proposals. Now, it's do you have people, what is the quality of life? Will I be able to attract people in the future? So if you you saw our booth earlier in the back of our booth, how much industry do you see? You saw rivers, you saw doughnuts? You saw a nice quality of life. It's a little interesting. Yeah.08:16It was funny because I'm trying to put it together. God. There's a donor. Tracking. This is the best place for donut manufacturer.08:27It's got you know the answer to that, right? It's Yes. The home of Krispy Kreme western North Carolina. Yes. So the revolution picture. There you go. Yeah, that workhorse? Yes. Bringing people No, no, no, it's good.08:43We saw an old Krispy Kreme sign. It was like that retro. It was okay. It was like, Oh, that's pretty cool. Okay, yeah, I digress. And aggressive. So how do you do that, Eduardo, how do we? How do we ensure you're, you're, you're buzzing around and? And how do you just ensure that these businesses feel comfortable knowing that we're going to the right place to be successful? We have that great partnership. And I know that we're stepping forward with our best football. How do we do that?09:18So I think is a lot of collaboration, making sure that all the partners are in sync. They know they know what it's coming, getting them on the table early in that conversation, so that everyone kind of speak the same language and in when companies come into market, helping them making you know, setting up meetings with the technical colleges or with other employers that are already there that you can tell the story and say hey, you we are already in Charlo. We are in this region. We have been here for this long lead. You know what better than having the another company speak the wrong story about how they have been successful and how maybe another one can do the same, you know, in just help grow that ecosystem that it's already been in place.10:07So let me put my hat on. And I, again, technology, blistering, the pace is absolutely blistering. So whatever I know today, tomorrow, I'm sure I'm on version 27. And I'm still sort of evaluating version one. So that's a reality of the marketplace to, then there's certain interesting economic challenges out there that are not just impact, and it's like a manufacturing, whatever the product is, that we are so interred. I mean, it's just interrelated. And every part is so important. What do you see in this sort of put that future hat? And this is going to Nathaniel, what do you see? How do companies sort of deal with the volatility that like, I think I see. And what I hear, let's put it that way, I, God bless those people that are dealing with supply chain and sourcing and all of the other stuff that's associated with just fulfilling11:10work in reference to supply chain. I mean, I think that's really something that sort of hit everyone by surprise.11:16Whereas with a two by four, very much so.11:20And if you noticed, I mean, not in reference to North Carolina that just happened on the East Coast. I think everyone sit back and like, Well, wait a minute. Look what happened to Los Angeles, maybe we need to do something about our ports to Charleston, stretching airport, North Carolina's Jackson airport as well. I mean, there's a lot of money.11:36Yes, it dredging. Yeah, they're cleaning it out. They're getting there. Yeah. So So bring it better, larger vessels or whatever.11:44Exactly. Exactly. So for example, certain ports, and I mean, I don't want to bash anyone here, but certain ports now only there's only maybe during high tide, you can come in, you turn around and come out. So when it's low tide, that you're not accessible as they really limit your ability there. So it's like, well, you know, if we dredged it's a couple more feet, we can bring in those post Panama ships, we can get a full turn for our service, that that really expands the operations and capability in companies now they're looking for that.12:12Yeah, yeah, they are12:13very much. So lots going into the railroads, let's go into the actual I will say the road and transportation infrastructure as well. So very much so.12:21Have you had Eduardo conversations about more reshoring, onshoring, nearshoring, whatever shoring to bring critical manufacturers back, okay, I can manufacture I've got a portfolio of manufacturing capabilities. I can keep that manufacturing process down there. But I need I need these critical ones. Have you been having those conversations?12:48Yes, yes, we have. And I think with the pandemic, and now it's becoming even more important. And you know, like Natalia was saying, what the supply chain issues, a companies are saying, well, we cannot keep for operations on the other side of the world, when people need things like now and quickly. So we're starting to get more of those conversation with companies, the same pay, I think, is maybe the time to get closer to where or consumers are, you know, the US is where they sell most of their products? Well, you know, we've COVID clearly show some of the differences that supply chain has. So we're starting to have a lot of those conversations, there is a lot of interest from international companies to like Eastern Europe, like they're looking at the US too, as another place to set up some local corporations. Because again, you know, they want to make sure they're closer to where they are selling across.13:44So with your organization, it let's say I'm a manufacturer, and I got it, and I can I can just go knocking on the door and saying, Hey, this is what I'm thinking and the skill sets the the ability to be able to collaborate and say and get answers to get some insights, at least begin that journey. I can I could definitely reach out to you guys and be able to do that14:06right? Of course and please do.14:10So So what do you guys do to sort of help get that message out? To anybody?14:15And stuff like we're here today.14:18And we have a boosted up here on the industrial talk podcast, which happens to be the number one this is not this is all backed up by data. Number one industrial related podcast in the universe. It's bigger than the Galaxy.14:30Wow. It's an honor to be here. Yes. Yes. I mean, to ask you a question. This is probably it.14:40You will not know what's gonna hit it. Well, I had to be the witness to solve it. Yeah. No.14:47Dancer, your question I mean, it states...