Podcast 15 Rebekah Woods Dr. Rebekah Woods is the President of Columbia Basin College. A fun fact about her is she hates putting the leftovers into the containers when she goes to a restaurant, or she promised her husband that one day she would be in a Hall and Oates cover band. Paul and Rebekah met recently at a TC Regional Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Being a person of faith, she knows that her journey was planned and she knew early on that she wanted to be a doctor. While in college, she decided she did not want to be in school that long and after her undergrad, she decided to go to law school. Nobody ever says, “I want to be a higher ed administrator,” and no one even realizes that these jobs exist. While practicing law, she decided she needed another challenge and started working on her PhD. It was then that she started learning about community colleges and their mission. She fell in love with the focus of helping people reinvent themselves. She felt that she wanted to be a leader in the community college realm. She started to prepare herself for a presidency and what that would look like and when that day would come. She loves the Tri-Cities and Columbia Basin College. She would tell her 20 year old self to relax! Everything is going to work out fine. She just spoke at her first commencement, and one of the things she spoke about was dreaming big and dreaming small. She would tell herself not to limit her dreams and aspirations. If someone had told her that she would be a college president someday, she would have said no way! She was quitet and reserved. Dreaming small simply is recognizing the innocence of what is truly important, like spending time with your family, focusing on just sitting down and reading to your child, spending time with your spouse and your friends. Making those little differences that people may not see or recognize but can really be life changing for the person that you are with. She is an Introvert by nature, and she can turn it on when necessary but would rather go read a book by herself. Her advice to other introverts is that you can do anything you set your mind to. Every field is going to have certain requirements that may not come naturally to you, but you need to understand your strengths and your weaknesses. A weakness is just another opportunity to grow. As an “I” you have to find that time for yourself. Find time to recharge so you can get ready for what is next. She has the ability to see the big picture and to see what that end goal should look like and to see the path to get there. She is in meetings all day long; so she has to ask the questions What do you think about this? Have you thought about that? because she has worked for a micro-manager and it is the worst leadership style. What is not natural for her is focusing on people: she makes sure that the assistant that is working with her has an affinity for remembering people’s birthdays, who just had a child, pay attention to “this”, you should really spend a few minutes talking to XYZ person. She has quiet time in the morning. When she gets to work, she hits the ground running. She makes sure that she has her water, her notepads, her phones, etc. She actually loves routines, and it’s what keeps her sane. There is so much research that needs to be done in higher education to stay on top: there is a lot of attending conferences, working with mentors. She has many mentors that pour into her, and she spends time learning what they are doing, a lot of benchmarking against other institutions that are receiving great results. So being what we want our

student to be, which is life-long learners. She is constantly learning new information and how to apply it to where she is and what she is doing. On the DISC Profile she is a High C and D. She is very detail- oriented: she likes things precise and a certain way. She believes this is part of what allows her to see the path to the big picture. Being able to see the big picture allows her to delegate and play off other people’s strengths by asking questions. Together they achieve the end goal better than she would if she was trying to achieve it by herself. Her greatest challenge while sitting the leadership chair, is staying in balance. There are several types of balance and the first is work/home life balance--making sure that she isn’t neglecting her marriage, family, friends, personal time, things that she is trying to do with her church. Maintaining that balance is something she is always focusing on. There is also balance within her position: identifying what are the glass balls and which are the rubber balls. So, there is way too much for anyone to do in 24 hours; so it is important to identify the priorities. What are the glass balls that must get done, and if they don’t, they will in essence shatter and have long-term negative consequences. On the other hand, the rubber ball, you can drop it and it will bounce back and catch it down the road. If you aren’t actually failing at some point, then you aren’t in the game. She had a boss that was a strategic risk taker. It taught her that when you are in the leadership position, it’s OK to try new things, and do things differently. Her favorite failure is when she implemented a new computer system at another institution and it failed miserably. It actually ended up being one of the best experiences for her leadership because when you have something that impacts so many people that isn’t working, it defines you as a leader. You are either going to bond with the team to make it work or you are going to crumble and fall apart. We came together to get the job done and turned it around. It was painful but looking back it was a positive experience. She is a huge fan of all the Patrick Lencioni books. The book that boils it down is the 4 Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. Also, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team. If you aren’t over-communicating, then you aren’t communicating at all. People actually need to hear something 7 times before they actually hear it. So, if you aren’t sick of communicating, then you are communicating. Make sure that you have your processes in line. Grow where you are planted. Since being in the community for 9 months, she has been trying to learn the community. So, before she even moved here, she called her predecessor and asked him who she should meet with. An hour later she was done writing and had a long list of wonderful people to meet with. How can the college be meeting the needs of the community? She is still trying to find what is going to work for her to meet her personal needs.

Tyler Best is the President/Owner of Abadan. Fun fact about Tyler is that he is an Alumni of Whitworth University where Paul’s son attends college, is also an avid sports fan, and he says he is going to have to start scaling that back as he gets older. Paul met Tyler at the Edge events that he and Preston House hosted where they brought 4 speakers in to inspire audiences with mini talks on leadership. Tyler was born into Abadan. His father worked there for years and then bought out the Tri-Cities branch. From a young age Tyler would come down to the office where he would run the halls, make a mess and then having to clean it up because his father doesn’t like messes. He would do janitorial work, cleaning the building, organizing, and started working in the copy center where he was mentored by another manager. Throughout high school he did odds and ends jobs at Abadan, and every summer during college he would learn different skills. He would learn to fix the copiers which did not come naturally to him. The summer he enjoyed most was when his father was in between managers; so his father taught him service-managing, dispatching, and while his father was in the hiring process, Tyler took over some of those duties. When he finished college, he didn’t want to work for Abadan, and instead he took a job at Circuit City, which wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do but he liked to have money. His father offered him a temporary position which he took. He then became a salesman, which he did for 2 years. After that he became a manager. It’s during that time he learned that he wanted to stay at Abadan for his career. His father started to phase out and Tyler took over. He has been very blessed that his father was there to teach him and guide him. God had a great plan. He learned that his father’s succession plan was to have him take over as the owner. He learned that you have to start the succession plan early on. Whether his own kids work at Abadan or not, he wants them to learn a good work ethic, that there is always an opportunity there. He is always thinking about another route in case his kids don’t want take over the business. He would tell his 20 yr old self, to listen first, ask questions, and take advice better. He has learned from his father a lot of information--even when his father didn’t think he was paying attention. He realizes that he doesn’t know everything; so, he goes outside his own industry to learn from others. His strength is caring about people. He focuses on his staff, employees, and customers. His father always said if it’s good for the customers, if it’s good for the employees, then it will be good for the company. If you are focused on taking care of people and doing the right thing, you will end up with the right result. His strength is knowing that. He is organized in what he does. One of his weaknesses is asking the right questions and getting more out of his employees. He is reading How Successful People Think by John Maxwell. He is trying to lean in with questions and get a good point of view from what the staff thinks. Best ideas come from your team. He starts his mornings with exercise, even if it’s walking circles in the house while listening to an audio book. It gets him motivated and he is listening to amazing books through the Mid-Columbia Library. When he gets to the office, he walks around to see how everyone is doing and makes sure that his staff sees him walking around--and then he heads up to his office to plan out his day. He checks his inbox, organizes his tasks in categories of urgency, and puts them on his calendar and tasks list. He uses

ToDoist and Zapper to cross-reference his tasks and outlook. Then he can prioritize his tasks by color of importance. He keeps himself out of ruts by reading books, and continues to learn from other people. He loves to go to seminars and classes. Their manufacturers put on industry-specific seminars so that they are learning and growing all the time. He believes that the investment to go to conferences and seminars is worth it, staying on top of industry development and trends. The more they learn, the easier it is to stay out of the ruts. In 7 years, they have doubled in size from 20 employees to now having 40 employees. Tyler’s greatest challenges as a leader is dealing with conflict. He tends to shy away from conflict but is learning to hit it head on. He has amazing managers and he is learning to rely on them and work with them through different situations. As he has gone through failure and making the wrong decisions he has learned how to continue moving forward, to vet the products first, and talk to others in the industry so that they can avoid any pitfalls. Failure has also taught him to have a better plan when entering into things. Sometimes he has rushed into things without getting outside input, which wasted time and money. He has learned that slowing things down a bit is a better strategy. He is very enthusiastic about celebrating his staff. Every couple months, they plan events for their employees and a few customers. They also plan a couple bigger events throughout the year, one of them being Water Follies. It helps a lot with morale. His book recommendations are: Permission to Speak Freely—Matt Kincaid Traction Good to Great-Jim Collins Built to Last-Jim Collins Eat that Frog-Brian Tracy 5 Dysfunctions of a Team-Patrick Lencioni

He is the owner and broker of Basin Pacific Insurance. He is quite the jokester in the family along with his 2 sons. His wife offsets the sarcasm in the house. One of his sons is funny, the other one is funnier, and he is the funniest! He also said he gets up at 5:00am whether he likes it or not without an alarm clock. He was raised on an orchard ranch in the Yakima Valley. Both his parents worked in Yakima and at the age of 11, being the oldest boy, he was given all the responsibility of taking care of the orchard ranch. He learned about hard work and accountability at a very young age. That has carried him all the way through his life. His parents couldn’t afford college; so he worked his way through college while attending WSU. After WSU he worked as a professional with The Boy Scouts of America. He then became a banker and that is what brought him to the Tri-Cities. He was an Ag Lending Officer. He promised his wife they would only be here for 2 years and that was 40 years ago…she has forgiven him for that. Banking wanted him to move, but they twice had fallen in love with the Tri-cities. He had a friend in 1985 tell him he needed to get into insurance. He told him no twice then decided to say yes, and it was one of the best decisions he ever made. Both of his boys are involved in the business now as well and it is very rewarding. His advice to parents: Don’t be too easy on your kids. His father was self-educated, and was very firm with his kids. There was no slacking on chores even if you had football practice. Let your kids struggle a little bit. One of his mottos is there is nothing for free. If you want something, you have to work for it. He is a very big proponent of the Boy Scouts of America. The advice he would give to his 20-year-old self is understand yourself, know thyself and follow your passions. Do what you love and do it to the best of your ability. There will be bumps and bruises along the road; just learn from them and just keep going. He is a relationship person. He likes being out in the public, meeting people, doing one to ones. He enjoys serving people, taking care of people. That is his strength. He is capable of doing HR, accounting, etc., but he delegates those services out and focuses on his strengths. His company has many strategic partners that he uses. He met his consultant in his industry at a golf tournament. He overheard many people asking him questions and he really liked his answers. He got to know him a little more, asked him to be his consultant once they got to know each other a little more. He had no room to make mistakes. There are many people out there that can support you. He starts his morning very early and he uses that time to organize his thoughts, feelings, and plans for the day. He plans out his week on Sundays. By 6:00 he has a cup of coffee with his wife and then he is out the door. He recommends that everyone create time for white space. His first boss at The Boy Scouts required him to have the next week planned out by the hour--that had a big impact. He keeps himself out of ruts by constantly setting goals and a vision. He makes sure he is watching what is happening around him. Today his company is 2.5x’s larger than he had envisioned and now he has set bigger growth plans. When you stop growing, you are going backwards.

She is the Executive Director of Tri-City Residential Services, TCRS. A funny fact about her is that not only does she talk to her bull dog, but she gives her dog personality tests! Her personal mission statement or what guides her in serving others is her faith, loving and serving others as Jesus did. Her decisions are filtered through her faith and prayer. Being a leader can be lonely sometimes; so you need guidance, a moral compass. She could not be the leader or servant without her faith. Practicing patience often will then create patience in all areas.

Success to her is making a positive difference in someone else’s life. As long as you have that goal daily, then everything else falls in line. Budget, staffing issues, etc. will all fall into place if you are leading from this place. She enjoys the relationship side of leadership, figuring out what makes someone tick and getting to know who they are.

The mentors in her leadership journey have been a group that help TCRS support adults that are mentally handicapped that have taught her so much about life and herself. She is someone who likes to have control and order. She is a control freak in remission. This group has taught her that it’s ok that things aren’t in order; it’s ok to take life as it happens. They have also taught her patience in building relationships. The main person that mentored her was her predecessor Roger. He came alongside her to challenge her, guide her and gave her the tools she needed to be effective in her position. Throughout her career, she has learned from good and bad leaders.

She used to fear failing but has learned that if you aren’t failing then you aren’t growing. She is a very trusting person and has made some hiring decisions that haven’t always worked out. What she learned is that their truth wasn’t the same as her truth. Having to go back and fix those hiring mistakes hasn’t stolen her trust in people, which she is very thankful for because she never wants to be cynical. Going through these failures has given her more confidence.

What she worried most about failure is that it means there is total devastation or an end: something that you can’t pick yourself out of. She’s learned to ask herself, “What is the worst that can happen?”. This is also where she leans on her faith.

Favorite Resources:

The Leadership Challenge

Eat that Frog

The Bible, Proverbs and The Old Testament

Eric & Laura Hsu are Digital Marketing Empowerment Strategists. Their mission statement is We build digital marketing short cuts for businesses. How it guides our decision-making is that with everything we do, we ask ourselves Have we hacked this down enough to make it very easy? We create value for others by realizing entrepreneurs don’t have time and want the bottom line up front.

What was the process when naming your business? We asked ourselves who really are and at the heart, we are communicators. Hacking is an en vogue work and means creating a shortcut. That’s how we came up the name Communication Hackers. Our focus is empowerment. When teaching small business owners, we use many checklists so that clients have exactly what steps they need to take. We also do instructional videos, screen captures, and a lot of communicating so that they know our brand as well. You can hack videos down with an app and a cell phone.

While building their business Tim Ferris is their greatest mentor. The biggest game changer for them is when they went to see Anthony Robbins and Gary Vaynerchuk. They are creating a mastermind group so that even though they are peers, they can also mentor one another.

The top trait of entrepreneurs is ready, aim and fire. By the time we are ready to fire our target has moved. Start with what you know and then dial it in & refine it. Use failure as feedback. Entrepreneurs have an ability to work outside the lines. The biggest way to fail is to worry about what other people think.

They have formulated their vision by focusing on the end goal. They create a checklist of milestones so that when they get there, they can gauge their success based on hitting the milestones. They find success in work life balance by keeping their date night sacred and by putting their marriage before their business.

Favorite resources:

Gary V: Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook everyone needs to have on their shelf. Become an expert in your field. Be more giving then ever asking.

The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau   Micro start-ups, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Tim Ferris: Systemizing, batching, save time   Tribe of Mentors  4 hour work week

Anything by Tony Robbins

Join us as Paul chats with Holley Sowards about running a funeral home with a smile on your face, advice for seeking legal advice on major decisions and more! Holley covers issue's she's faced in the business world running Einan's Funeral Home and assuming positive intention with the people we work with. Holley identifies her top two favorite traits of successful leaders and how to be successful no matter the environment you're in. 

Join us as Paul interviews Brandon about his life, professional and personal and dive deeper with us as we cover subjects such as Brandon's early leadership, family struggles, staying positive and making the most out of life. Brandon covers how to stay motivated and live out his personal mission statements: 1. "He want to be the person he has the potential to become", 2. "Be the dad his kids deserve and the husband his wife wants to love" and 3. "Be financially independent so he can focus on the things that matter most in life" 

Join us as Paul interviews Lynn about her life, professional and personal and dive deeper with us as we cover subjects such as her early leadership, involvement in education and marriage counseling. Lynn shares with us why it's important to have a personal definition of success and why it's important to make sure all your actions are in line with that personal definition. We also get to hear about Lynn's tips on efficient meeting management, buying in on an idea and meeting people halfway when they disagree. 

Luke’s life quote is "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." -Mahatma Gandhi

Luke is a lifetime learner—that journey has led him to try just about everything--at least 13 jobs at last count. From jobs as a paperboy, janitor, farmer, painter, sales clerk, sports writer, software and international salesman, food bank guy, fundraiser and youth advocate, Luke continues to learn a LOT. Over the past year, Luke has served as the Downtown Pasco Development Authority’s director and he is excited to share what he has learned on the job and how you can get involved in creating a downtown that ALL of us can be proud of. Luke is the proud father to two amazing girls and loves spending time with them. He also loves kayaking, camping, travel, festivals and serving in the community.

Dee is Chief of Staff at CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company, a prime engineering and environmental contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy at the Hanford Site. In her current role, Dee manages government affairs and strategic projects.  

Dee’s background includes business management and strategic consultation. She has served in various leadership roles within large companies as well as supported business development in small businesses focusing on engaging relationships. Dee built her own company and served as a communication consultant for CH2M HILL’s leadership team prior to coming in as a core member of its contract transitions group. Prior to that role, Dee served as Chief of Staff to the Chief Financial Officer of Fluor Hanford.

Dee is a strategic thinker, motivated by challenging roles that bring teams together.  Her strengths include organizational communication and bringing business strategies to fruition. Her passion includes facilitating teams through challenging concepts.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Communications as well as a Master of Business Administration.