805conversations

Yonette Thomas, PhD. is an entrepreneur who is moving from a lifetime as an academic research professor to a coach for academics. Her new venture, Strategic Transitions, helps academic professionals navigate the various transitions they’ll face during their career.

She has an impressive background, just read this brief bio from the IAPHS website:

Yonette Thomas, Ph.D., is science advisor for urban health to the New York Academy of Medicine, a member of the International Society for Urban Health Board, and a senior research advisor to the Association of American Geographers. She is a faculty affiliate of the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland College Park and a voluntary associate professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine where she teaches social epidemiology. Yonette was formerly the associate vice president for research compliance at Howard University. Previously she served as the chief of the Epidemiology Research Branch and program director for the sociology epidemiology program at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health. She has held faculty appointments in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the School of Pharmacy at Howard University. She is a member of the Consortium of Social Science Associations Advisory Committee and the Steering Committee of the National Hispanic Science Network. Her primary research and publications have focused on the social epidemiology of drug abuse and HIV/AIDS and the link with geography, including edited volumes: Geography and Drug Addiction, Crime, HIV, and Health: Intersections of Criminal Justice and Public Health Concerns. She has a Ph.D. in medical sociology and demography, with postgraduate training in epidemiology.

Wow. A real slacker, huh?

She and Mark met at Bo Eason’s’ Mastermind Group: The Best (based in Thousand Oaks). They’ve worked closely together to help her get her new business, Strategic Transitions off the ground.

Our conversation was fascinating and included:

• How people have always been attracted to her, especially around her personal story, and they ask her, “What do I do?” This constant questioning was what caused her to make the transition herself from academia into the world of consulting.

• She loves guiding, coaching and mentoring

• We talked about the Millennial Leadership Institute (MLI)

• What she means when she talks about Finding Your Avatar

• What it takes to become a professor, moving on to a tenured position, an endowed chair and how to access a professional network

• What it means to be a thought-leader

• Owning your achievement

• “It’s lonely in the world of higher education.”

• Why she loves the metaphor of gardening to describe what she does and how seasonality, planting, pruning, weeding, fertilizing and related tasks are deeply relevant to her new endeavor

• What’s been the biggest surprise so far? How much you have to pay attention to the ‘business’ side of the firm. As an academic her entire career, this requires focus and attention.

• Why you need a 20-year plan. She made a good case by studying the truly successful, who all had such a plan

Jeremy Goldberg, a UCSB grad, stopped by to talk about his life's mission, to make kindness cool. His interest in science vectored him towards human behavior and now he wants to change the world.

We talked about his life, his travels and where he's spending his time:

• He started writing in the 4th grade. Note: Jeremy's writing is fantastic. Here are links to articles he's written.

• How he started blogging as a way to keep family apprised of his travels

• How he went from uCSB to Brisbane, Australia on a study-abroad program

• His Ph.D. is in Social Science

• His "Theory of Planned Behavior."

• What it means to 'master influence.'

• The biggest surprise on the road to getting his doctorate? How hard it was.

• Tip from Jeremy: How to get a free year of college tuition (Answer: Just ask.)

• How his life's mission of sending Long Distance Love Bombs got started

• His fascination with Spoken Word performances (Think Sarah Kay's TED talk

• There was a good discussion about memorization after talking about spoken word performances. Mark mentioned Jim Kwik's LOCI technique, here's where you can learn more about it (free).

Matthew Fienup is a Lecturer and the Executive Director of Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University. His work as an economist is regularly delivered to a variety of groups throughout the region.

Matthew is a man of many interests. He’s studied professional photography, see photos here, (Summa Cum Laude at Brooks Institute) as well as architecture and started a rock-climbing business that still creates unique adventures for people. He is also completing his Ph.D. at the Bren School at UCSB.

Matthew holds a Masters degree in Economics from UCSB. His specialty is econometric analysis and the economics of private land use. Matthew is also active in the issues surrounding urban growth restriction and groundwater management policy in Ventura County.

In this episode we talk about;

• How you go from rock climbing, photography, and art to economics

• A good description of what the Center for Economic Research & Forecasting is all about.

• His interest: public policy and why it’s important

• How the last two years have produced significant policy changes

• How the water shortage prompted policy changes and how working with growers, the community and the public sector made policy’s that will make a difference.

• Did you know that Ventura County has some of the most valuable agricultural land in the world (we didn’t)

• How Cap and Trade policies could impact water in Ventura County

• How his work at the Bren Center informs his day job at the University

• He gave us some insight into his Rock Climbing business too

• How specific market niches in Ventura affect the economy, including biotech, the Naval Base, and Agriculture

• How the growth in low-wage jobs in healthcare and leisure and hospitality are affecting the local economy

• His interest in California’s Natural History – and what we don’t know – you’ll have to listen to find out

• We loved his explanation of the Bread Box Theory.

Brett Howlett is the Founder of an innovative new lifestyle company; You Are What You Sleep. His background is in the world of advertising.

Brett is based in NYC and comes to Santa Barbara by way of another guest of the show, Pia Dorer. They collaborate on projects, which brings him to town on occasion. He sat with Mark and Patrick to talk about his venture, which seeks to help people develop a 'sleep practice.'

They talked a little bit about advertising and how it's warrior culture means that you don't get a lot of sleep, especially if you're a senior creative, like Brett.

They covered several areas including:

• How his new venture is all about sleep health and what brought him to the point where he quit the ad game and entered the startup world.

• Why Huffington Post focuses on sleep issues

• What happens to us during deep sleep

• What you should eat just before bed. (Huh? I thought you were not supposed to eat... au contraire says Brett)

• The origin story behind the brand started 15 years ago

• Why aromatherapy is useful just before going to sleep

• Great discussion about sleep cycles and why they're 90 minutes long

• What related health conditions are exacerbated by lack of sleep, including diabetes, obesity, heart issues and more

• His 'ah-ha' moment, when he learned about the properties of wool and how they'd impact sleep

• Why you should be concerned about the temperature of your bed and the bedroom

• Did you know you lose a pint of water at night while sleeping?

• His outreach to youth to make sleep a part of the conversation and help them establish good sleep practices early.

Bradley Weber is the founder and CEO of RallyCare, a new app for the healthcare industry. He talked about how his personal journey through diagnosis to recovery from Cancer at 25 prepared him for this entrepreneurial challenge.

Bradley had his AHA moment when he had a quadruple bypass surgery and had to find ways to manage his own care and manage the generosity of his friends. The story is interesting and the problem-space that he's addressing potentially quite large.

We talked about:

• The development process and how he got the idea

• What really happens when you call 1-800-CANCER - or 1-800-MYDISEASE

• How being a caregiver for his mother while she had Alzheimer's also made the point clearly about the lack of support services for caregivers

• Why is the app Free? What's the business model then?

• The ecosystem of caregiving apps and where he fits in

• He and Mark got into a nice discussion about 'conversational development'

• What it's like to work with offshore developers

Sheila Cushman is the Executive Director Emeritus at MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration and Innovation. She talked with Mark and Patrick about the 27-year journey it took to build the museum.

In this conversation with broad background on the story behind the founding of the Museum, Sheila covers;

How land use politics affects even the most beloved of projects

Starting in 1990 with a group of committed citizens to build a Children's Museum

Paul Selwyn, president of the original Board of Directors and had experience wiht the Childnres' Museum of LA - with Eli Luria and the Orfela Foundation formed the initial leadership team

How the original design was a 3,000 square foot facility on the grounds of the Naturla Histroy Museum

In 2006, Shelia beacme the Executive Director of the Museum

How in 2007, the City of Santa Barbara gave them the land (in prmie real esated) for $1 a year for 50 years, with the help of local hero, John Davies.

Who’s the dragon in this story: Gov of California Jerry Brown

Spending years developing the concepts that turned into the amazing exhibits

What it takes to launch a nationwide search for a museum planned

The difference between STEM and STEAM (The A adds the Arts)

Her biggest surprise? “I had no idea I had the skills and tenacity to do this.”

Now what? She’s working with UCSB and the Allosphere project

We know that whatever Sheila puts her mind to, she’s going to make it better, and our City better as a result.

Sheila Cushman is the Executive Director Emeritus at MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration and Innovation. She talked with Mark and Patrick about the 27-year journey it took to build the museum.

In this conversation with broad background on the story behind the founding of the Museum, Sheila covers;

How land use politics affects even the most beloved of projects

Starting in 1990 with a group of committed citizens to build a Children's Museum

Paul Selwyn, president of the original Board of Directors and had experience wiht the Childnres' Museum of LA - with Eli Luria and the Orfela Foundation formed the initial leadership team

How the original design was a 3,000 square foot facility on the grounds of the Naturla Histroy Museum

In 2006, Shelia beacme the Executive Director of the Museum

How in 2007, the City of Santa Barbara gave them the land (in prmie real esated) for $1 a year for 50 years, with the help of local hero, John Davies.

Who’s the dragon in this story: Gov of California Jerry Brown

Spending years developing the concepts that turned into the amazing exhibits

What it takes to launch a nationwide search for a museum planned

The difference between STEM and STEAM (The A adds the Arts)

Her biggest surprise? “I had no idea I had the skills and tenacity to do this.”

Now what? She’s working with UCSB and the Allosphere project

We know that whatever Sheila puts her mind to, she’s going to make it better, and our City better as a result.

Dr. Sumantra Sengupta, from California Lutheran University (CLU), has an interesting story about his journey to the classroom. He shared this with Mark and Patrick and talked about how his life's work informs his discussions with his students. He's written a lot of books on the subjects of Globalizations, Optimizing Supply Chains, Streamlining Corporations and other topics of deep interest.

They covered a broad range of topics including:

• How he took his professional interests in agricultural trading and turned them into a business. How to look at your business from a global perspective to scale it

• How to look at your business from a global perspective to scale it appropriately

• Working with global partners and how regional differences affect decisions

• Working with Japan

• Advice about 'leaving something on the table' during negotiations. i.e. you don't have to win every battle or every point, every time.

• He's got some thoughts about people who don't listen

• He says we should consider being aware enough to know when to exit a situation. How to read the signs, especially when they are all pointing in the wrong direction

• His specialty: Turnarounds. He loves them

• Loved the part of the conversation about how to fire a client

• A recounting of the story about how he was recruited and hired by Gerhard at CLU

• What's his rule of thumb about being available and his thoughts on responsiveness

This episode was another in our continuing CLU series that continues to inspire and encourage us to dig deeper with the amazing educators that are all around us. You don't have to be in school to learn from these Jedis.

Dr. Tiffany Morse is the Executive Director of Career Education at Ventura County Office of Education. She helps explain the power of this work and it's importance to our Community.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what the role of Career and Technical education is all about in the year 2017. Learning about work is not what it was like when I went to school. Shop class is so 1970's

Here's a bit of what's in store in this episode

• She tells a great story of the partnership with her department and Ventura-based Harbor Freight and how that led to a $100K Grant

• What's the difference between Vocational Education and what she's doing now

• How the mission now is about preparing students for career (hence the name)

• How the diverse nature of the Community's population is reflected in the diversity of interests of potential jobs by the students

• What's her thoughts about Girls in Tech - and how behavior modeled by the family or people like guest speakers in school can affect decisions made at an early age

• How she thinks about setting an entrepreneurial mindset throughout the department

• How Career Ed works with students who are being home-schooled

• "What is the role of education in a Community?

• How Community Colleges have changed from vocational schools to schools that prepare students for transfer to four-year colleges and Universities

• How to think about College AND Career

• Where's Career Education going? It's Integrating Academics and Vocational Ed

• VC Innovates - 12 employees

• The title of this episode is a program that Dr. Morse invented that brings the business community together with students in a dinner and networking setting. They've had over 2,000 people go through this program. Note: Mark signed up!

http://VCInnovates.org for more information

Tiffany helped us create an incredibly insightful episode. We challenge you to reach out to your local school district and find a way to give some of your time to a program like this. Both the students you meet, and you will benefit.

Thanks to Greg VanNess at Tolman & Wiker Insurance Services for introducing us to Tiffany.

Jeff Carmody is the founder of Agility Capital in Santa Barbara. They focus on making loans to growth companies.

Jeff and Mark have been friends for more than 20 years, and this conversation will help you better understand how this type of financing works for your business.

We covered a lot during this interesting discussion:

• What are debt financials?

• How he got his start in the business

• What's an engineer from the Air Pollution control District doing in finance?

• Studying Geography at uCSB

• Working at Sandhill Capital (recognize that name?)

• Setting up a sister fund for Sandhill in Santa Barbara

• Loved this quote, "I was living in a fur-lined rut."

• He explains what he means by Connections in the Community and how that's guided him (and should guide you as well.)

• What're his criteria for working with a company and giving them funding?

- Is there a business?

- Who's running the business

- What's the ecosystem look like for the business

- How is Agility going to get paid back

• Great discussion about Guy Kawasaki's 10, 20, 30 rule for pitches

• Pecha Kucha (Mark chimed in on this one)

• Good questions you should ask yourself, How big is your market? And do you really need outside money?

• He's got some great tips on how you select a service provider (Lawyer, CPA, etc.)

• finally, Venture Debt is a thing - this could give you another option you'd not considered