Beyond Data Management Podcast

Beyond Data Management Podcast

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Beyond Data Management Podcast episodes

  • Chemical Powder left on the Bar at NC Chilli's. Bartender Thought It Was Sugar | Caitlin Gappa ep 63

    Caitlin Gappa is back, with health inspector confessions and questions from the community.  Including...

    - An inspector walks in and finds the kitchen manager has filled floor holes with asphalt. Durable, non-slip, and impossible to clean. Not a smooth, easily cleanable surface. Caitlin would have congratulated the creativity and written the correction.

    - A contractor brought in a strong caustic powdered cleaner. Someone emptied it into an unmarked container and set it at the bar. The person working the bar mistook it for sugar.
    Source news link:  https://www.wbtv.com/2026/10/30/3-chilis-customers-burned-after-chemical-reportedly-mixed-into-drinks-north-carolina/

    - SpiritualMUD5470 asks about the surge in unpermitted home-based food operations, AI promo graphics, and fear on the site visits. Caitlin on cottage food, Colorado’s tamale bill, California’s microenterprise kitchens, Wyoming, and the economic driver. 

    - Jimmy Lomain inspected the wrong branch of a fast-food chain. Same layout, wrong address, manager never asked. Caitlin has done it too, including two places with the same name. 

    - Gandalf asks about operators who make you wait until the rush clears before the exit interview. Caitlin calls it a power play in some cases. She does not wait. Email the report, offer to answer questions, signature is not required everywhere. You look weak if you sit in the corner.

    - CheapDragonfly has an inspector two years in who still cannot see violations. Caitlin’s method: stop letting them inspect, watch her, and have her narrate every thread she is tracking while she takes a temperature. Stand in the kitchen and notice. However, some people are not wired for it. That conversation is hard and necessary.

    They close on fantasy football. Caitlin beat Cameron by more than 50. Billy is the trade monger. 

    For the EH community this conversation provides a grounded perspective on the everyday challenges of professional development. By focusing on accountability and clear communication, listeners can better manage stressful situations  We also touch on the importance of maintaining professional standards during difficult team interactions.

    Beyond Data Management is powered by HS GovTech. Part two with Caitlin is next week.

    Chapters
    0:00 Cold open: caustic powder at the bar, asphalt in the floor

    0:40 Welcome, Caitlin, and the three studios

    2:10 Georgia: 159 counties in eight months

    5:30 What made the speed possible

    8:00 The asphalt floor patch

    10:30 Illegal food vendors and the unpermitted surge

    14:00 Matt Geller clip: stop enforcing

    16:30 Jimmy Lomain inspected the wrong restaurant

    19:30 Gandalf: operators who make you wait

    22:30 Training an inspector who cannot see violations

    26:00 Fantasy football and the Billy problem

    28:30 Close and preview of part two


    Subscribe for more health inspector stories and conversations about the people behind the scenes keeping us safe everyday.

    Send us Fan Mail

    Please remember to like and subscribe - and reach out to us with your stories and show ideas [email protected] 

    1 hr 8 min
  • He Worked 500 Feet Underwater - Now He Builds AI | Billy McKinnon Ep 62

    Billy McKinnon spent a decade doing one of the most dangerous and unusual jobs on Earth: saturation diving. He worked hundreds of feet below the ocean surface, connected offshore oil pipelines, breathed mixtures containing as much as 98 percent helium and remained under pressure for weeks at a time.

    Then COVID stopped the travel, Billy enrolled in a coding boot camp, learned from YouTube and reinvented himself as a software developer.
    In Episode 62 of Beyond Data Management, Cameron Garrison sits down with Billy to unpack that remarkable career pivot. Billy explains what saturation divers actually do, how a diving bell connects to a pressurized living chamber, why decompression can take four days and what it is like to work where visibility can disappear completely.

    The conversation then moves into Billy's current work supporting HS GovTech clients and building specialized scripts that extend HS CloudSuite for unique agency workflows. Cameron and Billy also tackle a timely question: as AI performs more of the coding, will the next generation of developers understand the systems they create?

    Finally, Billy demonstrates Dynasty Degens, his AI-powered fantasy football platform for Sleeper leagues. Its JARVIS engine analyzes entire leagues, evaluates trades and waivers, optimizes lineups, runs playoff simulations and learns from each week's results using historical performance, coaching tendencies, injuries, game conditions and weather.

    Your league mates are guessing. You don’t have to.
    Meet Dynasty Degens, the AI-powered fantasy football platform built to give you an edge.

    At the heart of it is JARVIS, your AI fantasy football engine. It brings together your Sleeper league’s settings and scoring with player usage, trends, matchups and historical data to help you make smarter decisions. Its weekly projections build on Sleeper’s baseline with adjustments for verified workload and opportunity.

    With an archive of over 2 million historical player-value data points, Dynasty Degens gives you more context for trades, roster strategy, lineups, waivers and drafts, all tailored to your league.

    Stop guessing. Start using AI.
    Try Dynasty Degens: https://dynastydegens.com/

    Guest: Billy McKinnon
    Host: Cameron Garrison
    Podcast: Beyond Data Management, powered by HS GovTech
    Subscribe for more conversations about environmental health, government technology, software, AI and the people doing the work behind the scenes.
    #SaturationDiving #SoftwareDeveloper #ArtificialIntelligence #FantasyFootball #govtech 

    0:00 Show open
    0:13 Meet Billy McKinnon
    1:28 Running technical support at HS GovTech
    1:50 An unconventional path into software
    3:26 What saturation divers actually do
    4:05 Breathing 98 percent helium at 500 feet
    4:46 Saturation diving footage from the North Sea
    6:22 Living under pressure for 28 days
    8:21 Life inside the chamber
    8:42 Ten years as a saturation diver
    9:01 Underwater pipeline work and Hydratight bolts
    9:52 Why COVID triggered a career change
    10:34 Boot camp YouTube and learning to code
    11:19 Will AI create developers who do not understand the code
    12:08 Custom scripts inside HS CloudSuite
    13:09 Four years at HS GovTech
    13:37 Learning the environmental health world
    15:02 Why every developer should ride along with an inspector
    16:15 The people and culture behind HS GovTech
    16:56 The 14 team HS GovTech fantasy league
    20:35 How dynasty fantasy football works
    22:27 The relentless Jaxon Smith-Njigba trade offers
    25:00 NFL injuries teams and weekly chaos
    32:14 Billy reveals Dynasty Degens
    32:56 JARVIS lineup optimization and projections
    35:08 Autopilot waivers trades and roster advice
    36:29 The Dynasty Degens Chrome extension
    38:14 The War Room exposes a bad trade
    39:08 AI draft review and dynasty strategy
    40:25 How to try Dynasty Degens
    41:29 Playoff simulations and smarter projections
    41:55 The 26 gigabyte local AI that learns every week
    44:19 A fantasy league for podcast viewers
    45:17 Building the platform with AI as the staff
    54:08 The person behind HS GovTech support
    55:26 Closing

    Send us Fan Mail

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    59 min
  • A 1906 Food Safety System Meets AI | Steven Mandernach | ep61

    Food safety is being asked to operate in two eras at once: a meat-inspection framework rooted in 1906 and a fast-emerging world of AI, connected data and mobile tools.

    Recorded at the 2026 WAFDO–CEHA–Rocky Mountain Food Safety Mega Conference in the Denver area, Cameron Garrison sits down with Steven Mandernach, Executive Director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), for a wide-ranging look at the forces reshaping food regulation.

    They unpack the Farm Bill, CBD and Delta-8, MAHA priorities, GRAS and ultra-processed foods, imported shrimp, meat-inspection modernization and the economics behind rising beef prices. Steve also explains why the summer Cyclospora outbreak was so difficult to trace, what public-health agencies learned from it and why prevention remains essential.
    The conversation then turns to execution: root-cause analysis for repeat violations, AI-assisted qualitative analysis, FDA–state data exchange modernization, mobile-first inspection workflows and the shift from monolithic applications toward connected mini-apps. They close with the new 2026 FDA Food Code, the hidden food-safety work behind FIFA, the Olympics and national political events, and AFDO’s upcoming virtual Inspector Boot Camp.

    0:00 Show open
    0:16 Live from the WAFDO–CEHA Mega Conference
    0:50 The conference circuit and Washington policy work
    1:18 AFDO legislation clears the Senate HELP Committee
    2:17 Why the Farm Bill remains stuck
    3:55 CBD, Delta-8 and the cannabis loophole
    5:49 MAHA, GRAS and ultra-processed foods
    6:37 The one food bill that might move: imported shrimp
    9:13 Beef policy and state meat-inspection programs
    10:29 Rethinking an inspection system built in 1906
    12:12 Cattle supply, processing capacity and food prices
    14:19 The massive Cyclospora outbreak
    16:39 Why Cyclospora is so difficult to trace
    19:35 CDC turnover, FoodNet and lessons from the outbreak
    20:52 Root-cause analysis and repeat violations
    21:32 How AI is accelerating food-safety data work
    23:31 FDA modernization, SFDX and better work planning
    25:09 Human-centered tools for inspectors in the field
    27:24 From monolithic systems to connected mini-apps
    27:57 Conference momentum and regulator training
    28:25 The 2026 FDA Food Code arrives early
    29:36 Protecting food at FIFA, the Olympics and national events
    31:50 Election turnover and food-policy uncertainty
    32:57 State-level MAHA laws and the preemption question
    35:06 What comes next for AFDO and HSGovTech
    35:55 AFDO’s virtual Inspector Boot Camp
    36:37 Closing


    Guest: Steven Mandernach, Executive Director, Association of Food and Drug Officials

    Host: Cameron Garrison

    Recorded at: 2026 WAFDO–CEHA–Rocky Mountain Food Safety Mega Annual Education Conference
    Subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of public health, regulation, data and technology.

    #FoodSafety #PublicHealth #ArtificialIntelligence #FoodRegulation #AFDO

    Send us Fan Mail

    Please remember to like and subscribe - and reach out to us with your stories and show ideas [email protected] 

    39 min
  • Food Freedom, MAHA and the State-by-State Fight Over Food Safety | Doug Farquhar

    Why do some states embrace “food freedom” while others stick with strict regulation? And why do red and blue states often end up facing the exact same food safety problems?

    Doug Farquhar, JD, Director of Government Affairs for the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA), joins Cameron Garrison live from the WAFDO / CEHA / Rocky Mountain Food Safety Conference Mega Conference in Denver.
    With more than 30 years working with state legislatures, Doug breaks down:

    Why there’s no single federal environmental health law
    How and why states adopt (or don’t adopt) the FDA Food Code
    The rise of Food Freedom laws and unregulated food sales
    MAHA-style legislation showing up in unexpected states
    The difference between a cottage-food cupcake exemption and retail raw milk or unregulated meat
    How state budgets and healthcare costs are quietly reshaping public health priorities

    This is a clear-eyed look at the real policy landscape environmental health professionals, regulators, and industry are navigating right now.
    Featured guest: Doug Farquhar, JD — NEHA

    CHAPTERS
    0:00  Cold Open: Red States, Blue States, Same Problems
    0:34  Podcast Opening
    0:46  Live from the Denver Mega Conference
    1:24  Why Environmental Health Organizations Need to Collaborate
    2:53  Finding Common Ground Across a Fragmented Field
    4:19  Doug Farquhar’s Path into Environmental Health Policy
    5:24  How Environmental Health Became Its Own Field
    5:45  AFDO Midroll: Free E-News and Quick Bites
    7:13  The Patchwork of Federal Environmental Health Authority
    8:00  Why States Do Not Use the Same Food Code
    9:02  Political Support, Budgets, and Delayed Adoption
    9:52  How State Political Systems Shape Public Health Law
    11:01  Mississippi and Iowa Lead on the EPA Lead Rule
    11:49  Why the Real Policy Action Happens in the States
    12:30  MAHA Laws, Food Dyes, and Nutrition Training
    14:33  Red and Blue States Confront the Same Health Problems
    15:03  Mississippi Tackles Childhood Obesity
    15:54  How Health Costs Changed State Priorities
    17:11  Michelle Obama, RFK Jr., and Overlapping Messages
    18:32  Why New York Still Uses the 2001 Food Code
    19:27  The State Backlash to FSMA
    21:15  Federal Funding as a Policy Lever
    22:15  Adoption of the 2026 Food Code
    23:30  Food Freedom and the Growth of Unregulated Sales
    24:17  The Michigan Cupcake Bill
    24:50  Raw Milk and Unregulated Meat in Retail Stores
    26:04  Food Sovereignty and Political Role Reversals in Maine
    27:23  Why Political Alliances Shift by Issue
    28:01  Closing and Doug’s Second Keynote of the Day

    Learn more about NEHA: https://www.neha.org

    AFDO E-News & Quick Bites: https://www.afdo.org

    Beyond Data Management Podcast: https://www.hsgovtech.com/bdmpodcast

    Got a story or episode idea? [email protected]
    Subscribe for conversations with the people on the front lines of environmental health, food safety, and public health policy.
    #EnvironmentalHealth #FoodSafety #FoodFreedom #PublicHealth #MAHA #FoodCode #NEHA #AFDO #BeyondDataManagement

    Send us Fan Mail

    Please remember to like and subscribe - and reach out to us with your stories and show ideas [email protected] 

    30 min
  • A Mouse Baked Into Sliced Bread | and 170 Other Things Environmental Health Handles.

    Special Friday drop and the first full check flight from the new permanent studio. Cameron sits down with Adam Smith of HS GovTech for a look at the show heading into 2027, the rebuilt HSGovTech site, and why environmental health is set up to lead the next wave of regulatory tech.

    They open on three studios in two years, the road sets from NEHA Phoenix and Kansas City, and the elevator moment in Denver with Rebecca from Garfield County. The show is past 8,000 subscribers. Adam walks through the new story form so inspectors can submit what they have seen, on camera or anonymous. The example that still sticks: a mouse baked into a loaf of bread, then sliced. The fingertip in the salad is the runner-up.

    Then the site. Adam quarterbacked a rebuild that is a resource, not a sales wall. The catalog shows more than 170 regulatory program areas on HS Cloud Suite, each clickable. Cameron on why EH workflows are more complex than building and planning, and how Maine’s agriculture work led the Gaming Commission to the same platform. Implementation lessons from neighboring agencies. More than 1,100 agencies on the suite. Coming on the blog: a plain-English guide to the new FDA Food Code and the NEHA Retail Flexible Funding Model grants.
    They close on AI. The site was built in six weeks instead of three to six months. AI-assisted mobile inspections are in flight. Adam’s daughter Theo just turned one. His first appearance on the show never aired.

    Beyond Data Management is powered by HS GovTech. Recorded in the new studio.

    Links
    HSGovTech resources: https://www.hsgovtech.com/resources

    Beyond Data Management: https://www.hsgovtech.com/bdmpodcast

    Submit a story: [email protected]


    Chapters
    0:00 A special Friday episode from the new studio

    1:04 Meet Adam Smith

    2:20 Three studios in two years

    4:13 Conspiracies, road shows, and taking the podcast on tour

    6:33 Meeting the environmental health community

    7:39 8,000 subscribers and what is coming in 2027

    8:25 How to submit your environmental health story

    9:08 Why the public needs to hear inspector stories

    10:36 The mouse baked into sliced bread

    12:15 Why HSGovTech rebuilt its website

    13:56 Why environmental health is more complex than it looks

    15:13 How EH workflows expanded into gaming

    16:36 More than 170 supported regulatory programs

    18:28 A searchable catalog of real agency use cases

    19:31 Transparent resources instead of a sales wall

    20:32 Podcasts, webinars, blogs, and customer stories

    21:31 Implementation lessons from neighboring agencies

    22:37 More than 1,100 agencies on HS Cloud Suite

    23:33 FDA Food Code and Retail Flexible Funding Model resources

    24:33 Making grant funding easier to use

    26:56 AI at HSGovTech and a website built in six weeks

    28:00 AI-assisted mobile inspections

    28:31 Parenthood, sleep, and travel gifts

    30:44 Adam’s unreleased first appearance

    32:21 Closing and a preview of season three

    Send us Fan Mail

    Please remember to like and subscribe - and reach out to us with your stories and show ideas [email protected] 

    34 min
  • AI Food Safety Audits: PathSpot, Chopt and the End of Clipboards

    Can artificial intelligence replace million-dollar restaurant audit programs—and make food safer at the same time?

    Recorded at the 2026 WAFDO, CEHA and Rocky Mountain Food Safety Conference Mega Conference in Denver, Cameron Garrison sits down with PathSpot co-founder and CEO Christine Schindler and Chopt Creative Salad Company co-founder Colin McCabe.

    Colin shares how he and Tony Shure grew Chopt from one New York City restaurant into a major fast-casual brand—and how an outbreak involving a product Chopt did not even serve still damaged sales because consumers associated the problem with salad generally.

    The conversation then moves into the future of restaurant food safety: connected temperature monitoring, handwashing verification, digital labeling, AI-powered spot audits, photographic evidence and real-time coaching.

    Christine explains how PathSpot is working to replace fragmented checklists and expensive, infrequent third-party audits with a continuous food-safety operating system. Colin offers the operator’s perspective: new technology only works if it is easy to use, saves labor and gives restaurant teams actionable information.

    Chapters
    0:00 Opening from the Denver Mega Conference
    0:54 Meet Christine Schindler and Colin McCabe
    1:07 Building Chopt into a 100-restaurant brand
    1:39 How a lettuce outbreak hurt an unrelated brand
    3:45 The origins of fast casual
    4:24 A restaurant founder obsessed with food safety
    4:59 How Colin found PathSpot
    6:40 The complete food-safety cockpit
    7:37 Overcoming cost and operator mindspace
    9:51 PathSpot adoption across the food industry
    10:31 AI spot audits and major cost savings
    11:09 Photos, standardization, and continuous oversight
    12:43 Technology must be easy and save time
    13:30 Replacing seven-figure audit programs
    14:34 Turning audit time into targeted training
    16:27 Restaurant staffing, turnover, and training
    17:07 Why Chopt employees stay
    18:59 Food safety as a predictor of restaurant performance
    20:21 Technology as a recruiting and culture advantage
    21:32 Restaurants, health departments, and data sharing
    23:09 The next PathSpot innovations
    25:13 How AI changes product development
    26:18 Closing remarks

    They also discuss:

    • Why traditional inspections provide only a snapshot
    • How photographic evidence reduces disagreement and auditing bias
    • The potential to save restaurant brands seven figures in audit and travel costs
    • Turning inspection findings into targeted employee training
    • Restaurant staffing, retention and food-safety culture
    • Why strong food-safety performance can predict overall restaurant performance
    • How technology can become a recruiting and retention advantage
    • Whether restaurants should share internal safety data with health departments
    • Why AI allows technology companies to build requested features much faster

    Learn more:

    PathSpot: https://pathspot.com
    Chopt Creative Salad Company: https://www.choptsalad.com
    WAFDO: https://wafdo.wildapricot.org

    Beyond Data Management is hosted by Cameron Garrison and powered by HSGovTech.

    #FoodSafety #RestaurantTechnology #ArtificialIntelligence #EnvironmentalHealth #PathSpot #Chopt #RestaurantManagement #PublicHealth #FoodService #BeyondDataManagement

    Send us Fan Mail

    Please remember to like and subscribe - and reach out to us with your stories and show ideas [email protected] 

    30 min
  • He Teaches Food Safety to Future Doctors - Almost No Med School Does - BDMP ep 57

    Description
    Dr. Ben Ryan joins Cameron at GEHA 2026 on Lake Lanier, about a half hour outside Atlanta. Ryan is a professor at the Frist College of Medicine at Belmont University in Nashville, where he is putting environmental health into a brand-new medical school. He previously helped stand up a master’s of public health and environmental health program at Baylor, and he is in his first year as NEHA Region 7 representative (Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Florida).

    They get into why first-year med students light up over toxicology and food safety, why an MD running a health department often has almost no environmental health training, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate of about 27,000 environmental science and occupational health jobs a year for the next decade. Ryan on the salary gap pulling people out of local government, Tennessee’s tuition package as a retention tool, and why a five-to-ten-year pipeline may be the realistic model.

    Episode Timeline:
    0:00  Opening and Introduction
    0:22  Meet Dr. Ben Ryan
    0:55  Bringing Environmental Health into Medical School
    2:50  Environmental Health Careers and Workforce Demand
    4:26  Recruiting and Retaining Government Professionals
    5:24  What a NEHA Regional Representative Does
    6:46  Teaching Future Physicians at Belmont
    8:54  Why Build a Brand-New Medical School Program?
    10:38  From Australia to the United States
    11:52  Environmental Health in Australia vs. the U.S.
    14:36  Pandemic Response and Geographic Isolation
    16:58  Adapting to American Culture
    18:06  NEHA Growth and the Next Generation
    18:34  AI, Surveillance, and the Human in the Loop
    20:12  Turning Data into Faster Public-Health Action
    22:03  How Students Should Use AI
    23:04  Measuring Environmental Health’s Impact
    24:46  Closing Remarks


    Also on the table: Australia vs. the U.S. He grew up in Canberra, trained at Griffith in Brisbane, and has been in the States about nine years. Australia is only now opening a CDC and has no National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences equivalent. Dengue, cyclones, and local environmental health officers look familiar. The pandemic timeline did not. Friends back home were still locked down while he was at a Rangers game.

    They close on NEHA’s 7,000-plus members, 1,300 at the Kansas City AEC, 150 of them students, and using AI on inspection and surveillance data with a registered environmental health specialist still in the loop. Georgia’s new system lands in November. Same rule as everywhere else: storing the data is not the same as acting on it.

    Beyond Data Management is powered by HS GovTech. 

    Recorded live at the Lake Lanier Islands Resort for GEHA 2026.

    Send us Fan Mail

    Please remember to like and subscribe - and reach out to us with your stories and show ideas [email protected] 

    27 min
  • “The Cats Will Handle Our Rodent Problem” - A Health Inspector’s Life | Chase Boddicker ep 56

    Chase Boddicker never planned to be a health inspector. He trimmed trees and sprayed pesticides for Grand Junction Parks and Rec. His wife Kyla saw the Mesa County posting and said try it. Three years later he’s on the western slope talking food, air, and why the job is almost never the hammer people think it is.
    Recorded live at the CEHA + WAFDO Mega Conference in Lakewood, Colorado.

    In this episode:

    Iowa cornfields to 1.5 million acres of public land on the western slope
    Why “thank God you’re here” is the sentence that makes an inspector pay attention
    Cat food in the kitchen — “obviously, to feed the cats” that were the pest-control plan
    The operator closed on their very first routine inspection
    The mobile unit that kept selling because “the freezer still works”
    The guy who called every inspector an expletive… then roasted Chase for temping chicken wrong… then decided Chase was his favorite
    Colorado’s certified nose: Nasal Ranger, opacity, burn bans
    Advice for day-one inspectors: be curious, drop the acronyms, say “I don’t know”
    Yellow gloves on the ready-to-eat line, and why humility in someone else’s kitchen matters
    Why asking about the brisket is better enforcement than writing the ticket
    “¿Cómo se dice?” and the Mesa County team behind him

    Chase’s rule before he writes anything down: what are they trying to do?
    Beyond Data Management — powered by HS GovTech.

    Chapters
    text0:00 Episode Preview
    0:32 Opening
    0:45 Live from the Colorado Mega Conference
    1:26 Meet Chase Boddicker of Mesa County
    2:52 From Tree Work to Environmental Health
    3:52 A Wife’s Nudge Changes a Career
    5:11 AFDO 
    6:07 From Iowa to Colorado
    7:23 The Relational Side of Inspections
    10:38 Cats as Pest Control
    12:44 Memorable Inspection Stories
    17:32 Air Quality and the Certified Nose
    19:15 Advice for New Inspectors
    21:13 Curiosity as a Career Advantage
    24:17 Seizing Unexpected Opportunities
    26:20 Humility and Respect Inside Kitchens
    28:07 Education Over Enforcement
    29:58 The Team Behind the Inspector
    31:26 Closing Thoughts

    Guest: Chase Boddicker, Mesa County Public Health, Colorado

    AFDO Fresh Take Friday Webinar Series:  https://AFDO.org/fresh-take-Fridays

    Recorded at: CEHA and WAFDO Mega Conference, Lakewood, CO

    Send us Fan Mail

    Please remember to like and subscribe - and reach out to us with your stories and show ideas [email protected] 

    32 min
  • The Only Inspector in the County | Danielle Hurst Wraps GEHA 2026

    Danielle Hurst, MPH, is Cook County’s only environmentalist — 87 food services, septic, land use, billing, the whole door. She also emceed every session at GEHA 2026. Recorded as the conference wrapped at Lake Lanier.
    She spent 10 years as an X-ray tech, started an undergrad for PA school, and applied for this job when epi didn’t have an opening. She stayed because she does not like sitting in an office.
    In this conversation:

    What it means to be the only EHS in a 10-county South Georgia district’s smallest county
    Mom-and-pop consistency vs. corporate turnover — and restaurants that never came back after COVID
    Regulating people you see in the grocery store and whose kids go to school with yours
    Why she calls people like Tim Callahan “hidden heroes”
    Food trucks, sister agencies, and why Georgia’s Health–Ag relationship is stronger than most states
    Rolling into president-elect and running the conference again next year
    How she booked the guests before the podcast even unpacked

    Live from GEHA 2026, Lake Lanier, Georgia.

    Beyond Data Management, powered by HS GovTech.
    Chapters

    00:00 Wrap-up at Lake Lanier

    00:53 She booked Food Truck Matt off an episode

    01:00 Emcee of every session

    01:16 Cook County — 87 facilities, one environmentalist

    02:34 Mom and pop vs. turnover

    03:18 COVID, staffing, restaurants that closed

    04:05 Neighbors in the grocery store

    05:37 Was the conference a success?

    07:54 Tim Callahan’s award

    08:08 Hidden heroes

    09:13 X-ray tech to environmentalist

    12:20 President-elect next

    13:10 The food truck session

    13:49 Health and Ag in the same room

    15:14 Find your Danielle

    16:38 Tear-down / thanks
    Links

    AFDO Meaningful Metrics — https://www.afdo.org/training/

    Send us Fan Mail

    Please remember to like and subscribe - and reach out to us with your stories and show ideas [email protected] 

    18 min
  • An Inspector’s Camera Roll: Sewage in Neighbor’s Yard, Dentures in a Bowl, and a creepy Pizza Place

    Joseph Addison (Fayette County, Georgia) has placed in the NEHA photo contest three years running. Recorded live at GEHA 2026, he walks Cameron through 12 photos from the field — the funny ones, the filthy ones, and the one he did not put on the report.
    In this episode:

    -“Biscuitus” and other kitchen personality that isn’t in the code

    -A septic repair that got dumped into the neighbor’s yard (2nd place, NEHA general category)

    -The pizza-place back room that looked like a lab — and why he pocketed the phone and left

    -Dentures in a mixing bowl
    A septic tank that floated out of the ground after a pump-out and a downpour

    -Bloodshot googly eyes over a prep sink

    -A hibachi floor so greasy it looked black — and why that still wasn’t an automatic close

    -The difference between “gross” and “will put someone in the ER”

    -Joseph’s point the whole hour: this is not a gotcha job. Inspectors are guests in someone else’s house. Call your inspector before the floor turns into sludge.

    Beyond Data Management — powered by HS GovTech. Recorded at GEHA 2026, Lake Lanier.  Special thanks to Danielle, Austin and the entire GEHA team for their invitation and hospitality.

    Be sure to subscribe for free to AFDO's Quick Take Friday's: https://AFDO.org/fresh-take-fridays

    Chapters:
    0:00 Intro
    0:23 Live from GEHA + the NEHA photo contest
    1:48 Why some departments won’t let inspectors take photos
    2:34 Fayette County, Georgia
    3:09 Photo 1: World Famous Biscuitus
    4:07 Photo 2: Septic repair dumped into the neighbor’s yard
    7:11 Photo 3: The pizza-place back room
    10:25 Why he didn’t write it up — or call the cops
    11:17 The roadside fish box with one prop fillet
    12:03 The dentures
    21:00 The septic tank that floated out of the ground
    21:45 Googly eyes over the prep sink
    23:42 Dishwasher grease + the same facility’s floors
    26:00 Hibachi grease measured in inches
    28:20 Gross vs. what actually shuts you down
    30:10 They volunteered to close — then pressure-washed the building
    31:15 Recurring segment: Life on the Road with Joseph Addison
    32:10 Advice to operators: call your inspector
    33:14 Close

    This episode captures the unvarnished side of public health work. Cameron walks through an actual inspector actual camera roll, showing the bizarre and challenging scenarios that inspectors encounter daily. It is a raw look at what really happens when you walk into a site and find a pizza place that defies all logic.

    Subscribe for weekly public health and safety breakdowns. Let us know in the comments: what is the strangest thing you have ever found on an inspection?

    Beyond Data Management, powered by HS GovTech.

    Send us Fan Mail

    Please remember to like and subscribe - and reach out to us with your stories and show ideas [email protected] 

    36 min

About Beyond Data Management Podcast

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The definitive podcast for government data management and stories from the field - with a special focus on Environment Health professionals.