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John: Hi, this is John Shegerian. I never could have imagined when we started the Green Is Good radio show back in 2006 that it would grow into a big podcast called the Green Is Good Podcast. And now, we’ve evolved that podcast into the Impact Podcast, which is more inclusive and more diverse than ever before. But we did look back recently at some of our timeless Green Is Good interviews and decided to share some of them with you now. So, enjoy one of our great Green Is Good episodes from our archives. And next week, I’ll be back with a fresh and new episode of the Impact podcast. Thanks again for listening. I’m grateful to all of you. This is John Shegerian.

Narrator: Welcome to Green Is Good. Raising awareness of each individual’s impact on the environment and helping to create a more beautiful and sustainable world. Now, here’s John Shegerian, Chairman and CEO of Electronic Recyclers International, and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome to Green Is Good, Mike. It’s great to be in the studio with you.

Mike Brady: Always, John. I look forward to this every week. And this truly is the high point of my week. A chance for us to entertain, inform and empower our audience, and how we can all come together and make the world a better place in which to live and raise our kids and grandkids.

John: Well, [laughs] today is just another great guest and another great show, but I just want to remind our listeners that you and I tape our show here in Fresno, California, in the Central Valley of California.

Mike: Right.

John: And we have a little bit of local recognition. We have a local superstar among us who ties into today’s show.

Mike: Oh, yeah?

John: We have Tim McDonald, the ex-NFL player who is an amazing player of the San Francisco 49ers.

Mike: Right.

John: He is a local and owns a restaurant, is the coach of the Edison football team, very well known, and very well adored here in this town, and respected. And he used to be represented by our guest today.

Mike: No, Leigh Steinberg?

John: Leigh Steinberg.

Mike: Wait a second.

John: And it was his story, and he was with Leigh, Jerry Maguire was based on Leigh Steinberg’s experiences as a sports agent, and Tim was one of the key role models for the movie and actually also starred in the movie, made a cameo appearance in Jerry Maguire.

Mike: Show me the money.

John: Show me the money. And we have Leigh Steinberg, legendary sports agent Leigh Steinberg with us today Mike, on the line. Why don’t we get him now?

Mike: Let’s do it.

John: We are so honored today to have both my friend and legendary sports agent, Leigh Steinberg, on the phone. Leigh, thank you for coming on Green Is Good. You are the legendary sports agent, the man behind Jerry Maguire and Arliss, and so many other great movies and agents and Troy Aikman, Steve Bartkowski. Leigh, thank you, and welcome to Green Is Good.

Leigh Steinberg: Well, it’s my pleasure. I’m excited to do it.

John: Well, Leigh, you know, there’s a famous line in Jerry Maguire, “Okay, just jump right into my nightmare, the water is warm.” Was that a little of you foreshadowing of the Green Revolution? What was coming? What got you into this?

Leigh: You know, a real feeling that our species is in denial, and we’re just not seeing what’s around us that we don’t want to be the first generation to hand a degraded quality of life down to our children. And that, we are sitting around. The dinosaurs, of course, we’re on the planet all those years, and they have these wonderful prodigious bodies but limited intellect and couldn’t adapt to the comet, storms, and other changes environmentally that doomed them. Well, we’ve got these wonderful brains, but we seem to be limited in our ability to adapt because of nation-states, and greed, and multinationals, and a whole lot of reasons for climate change. And it just strikes me that the oceans are rising, the South Pole is breaking up, we’ve got hurricanes and all sorts of environmental changes that are occurring with the temperature rising very quickly. And we need to be, technologically, the generation that jumps on this, and if I can use sports and attitude change to do a clarion call here so that we turn this around rapidly. I was raised by a father who said two things; one, to treasure relationships. And the second was to try to make a meaningful difference in the world. And that’s what we’re trying to do.

John: And Leigh, you had an amazing career and I’ve been so lucky enough to share time with you and know how truly brilliant you are on so many subjects. What was your tipping point as you’ve represented all these legends and sports? What made you jump into and start becoming a thought leader and a doer in the Green Revolution? What was that tipping point moment?

Leigh: I think when I first saw Al Gore’s film and realized how rapidly this whole change was occurring and realized that air pollution, water, the degradation of the rainforest, that it was all going to imperil the next generation. And that it was occurring so rapidly that if we didn’t start to use our best brains and try to retrofit the energy systems that we use to try and do dramatic things.

And when I saw Walmart change the light bulbs in their stores, it was no longer the purview of just tree-huggers. That there was a basic understanding that unless we changed the way that we live, and it doesn’t have to be so dramatic but, unless we put this as a top priority then, we’re going to go beyond the tipping point. And we’ll live in a very different way which we won’t like very much. And we need to lift the veil of denial and start to act very decisively to try and change this.

John: Leigh, you founded the Sporting Green Alliance. What is that? And what are you doing with sports franchises and universities across America to get them to become part of the solution? The Green Revolution solution.

Leigh: Well, basically John, we’ve aggregated a set of sustainable technologies and go on to certain franchises and talk to them about integrating those technologies into their stadia and arenas for two purposes; one, to trap carbon emissions and the energy load. And second of all, to transform them into an educational platform so that the millions of fans, and literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of fans that go to sporting events, all across the country at the high school, collegiate, and professional level can see a waterless urinal, can see a solar panel, can see recycling, and these advanced energy systems and think about how they integrate those concepts into their own homes and businesses so that sports can lead the way.

And if you think about the number of fans that go to games, the amount of real estate that those venues cover, it’s really extraordinary. In addition, we can get franchises and we’ve talked to some of them about being producers of content. So if you could have green superheroes fighting for the environment, green cartoon heroes, educate a new generation of kids to have green forest and use the same power of role modeling that we’ve used in other parts of our practice so that the fact that athletes can trigger attitudinal change, they can be role models to trigger imitative behavior. And so, when we’ve had a Warren Moon, be part of the million people Environmental March on Washington, which is virtual, not actual. [crosstalk]

John: Right.

Leigh: And sit there on that website, or cut PSAs or be part of the environmental media push. If we can have athletes start to trigger attitudinal change and get people to see how they can make a basic change in their lives, then it can make a real difference. It’s the same principle that we’ve used, John, in having a Lennox Lewis say, “Real men don’t hit women.” Or having Steve Young say, “If you really believe in America, prejudice is foul play.”

It can trigger basic change. So that’s what we’re trying to do. Give people a chance to use sports as the venue where they can see these changes.

John: Got it. I mean, that is amazing. So now, what athletes of yours and you find all, the stable of athletes that you’ve represented over the years is just quite quite, frankly, a Hall of Fame of names from Aikman on down and big Ben who’s in Pittsburgh? What are you doing now? What are your athletes? Give us an example of one of your messengers and what the message they’re giving now. If in 1993, just like the name of our show, Leigh, is Green Is Good. Because that’s a play on 1987 Gordon Gekko’s, “Greed is good.”

What if show me the money was the call of the times back in ’93, which was so brilliant, and what you did with Jerry Maguire. What is the call of the times and what is the message that you’re giving your athletes to go and promote. And what is the ripple effect that you are seeing?

Leigh: Well, it’s every part of really how people live. We do a Super Bowl party, as you know. [laughs] Because electronic recyclers was a [crosstalk]

John: We were a partner of yours and we were honored and it was just amazing. You throw a party for 2500 of your closest friends.

Leigh: And they’re 2500 opinion leaders. So, you have a number of the athletes there. Here would be an example. You have all these opinion leaders and so they walk up to the front door of the party and they’re encouraged to recycle their old cellphone or their old computer, through electronic recycling. They walk into a party, and there’s a green carpet. It’s all using solar panels. It’s all biodegradable. All the products are either recycled or made from recycled materials. The waste products, every part of it is a green model so that people can actually see how you could take a home or a business and rewire an energy system, use renewable energy in the same way.

And then, we have athletes who were there who were encouraging all of these tips. So they’re biodegradable materials used everywhere, solar panels used everywhere powering the grid. And so, it becomes a model for how you can rewire a whole system and then we’ll do a silent auction there which or a live auction which aided the environmental fund for Arizona. In one case or the other case, the Tampa Lowry Park Zoo, which focused on conservation. And so, you are using the power of these athletes to impact and affect opinion leaders in the same way. When you have stadia, that does what the Washington Nationals did, which is to have a leech rating from the US Green Building Council or an in-house recycling center and wastewater system designed to filter out, hot dog bits or peanut shells or low flow plumbing. Or the Dallas Stadium with a reflective roof and they use bright star. Or the new Jets-Giants stadium, which is lead compliant.

In each of these cases, the Novacare Complex for the Eagles uses corn plastic dishes and utensils. These are all just examples where you’ve got different methods that people will start to see. The New Minnesota Twins franchise has low volatile organic compounds. Or you’ve got a system called AtmosAir, which is now in the Kansas City and Dallas facilities, which uses this ionization process to take all the bad molds out of the air and, therefore, uses less energy. So these are just a variety of different systems that get people’s imaginations going. And then they can see how they can use them in their own businesses and their own lives.

John: Perfect. Leigh, we’re going to take a quick break to commercial and we’re going to come back. Our listeners got to come back and listen to legendary sports agent, Leigh Steinberg, because he’s here today on Green Is Good.

Voice-over: If a little green is good, more is even better. Now, back to Green Is Good with John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to Green Is Good. Mike and I, are so humbled today to have legendary sports agent Leigh Steinberg on the phone. Leigh, thank you for being with us today. And talking a bit about the statistics are just amazing. As you mentioned before the commercial break, the real estate that sports occupy across America and the world, and the difference it can make in the greening of the world.

For instance, say 6480 regular season Major League Baseball games. And as you were saying before the break, imagine if you can help these owners make some minor changes and adjustments in their stadia. In terms of greening their stadia, the impact that would have on all the people who attend those games. Speak a little bit more about that and what else you’re trying to do with all that’s going on.

Leigh: Well, if you really think about it and you look at the amount of attendance there is. Literally, it’s hundreds and hundreds of millions of people go to games at the high school, collegiate, and professional levels. And the amount of real estate, you’d be aware of it if you ever look down as you’re flying, you know, across the city or an area. And you realize just how many practice fields, stadia, high school, indoor arenas that play basketball, hockey, soccer, indoor or outdoor. I mean, the amount of real estate is extraordinary.

It becomes a major issue both in terms of water use. We found, for example, a technology that puts electricity into the water and that enables it to defeat soil compaction, which is what stops agricultural growth. When they do this in a series of golf courses, which is a whole different issue, it saves about 70% of the water. So we’re looking at issues of water, public transportation. The type of products that go into building these stadia. For example, Citi Field with the Mets was built from 95% recycled steel. And how we get people to the games, again, the public transportation. It’s really a whole set of interrelated issues.

If you would think of the fact that you’ve got a major massive amount of real estate and land that’s being impacted for professional sports. And then you’ve got the opportunity to have in essence, discovery centers, where you’ve got young kids growing up learning these practices and their parents thinking about how to integrate them and spread the more energy-efficient practices.

So, we stopped having to be dependent on foreign oil and stopped having to worry about waking up every day, reading the paper about what happens in the Middle East. It offers a tremendous amount of creativity and we’re seeing the best and brightest in American industry. And if I can be so bold, I think that this might end up being the way we save our economy. Because when we get the best and brightest in American industry, such as John’s done with electronic recycling. When you get the brightest minds in this country, all trying to work on solutions, we’re going to start making products that the world wants to buy. And when we’re making products the world wants to buy, it’s going to force China to compete to try to solve things environmentally. And all of a sudden, we re-energize our economy. We put people into green cars. We put people into electronic cars. We’ve retrofit our systems and sports can be a stimulant to lead the way in all of this.

John: Okay. So Leigh, now these are amazing initiatives. Many of them, if not most of them, are paradigm-shifting from what we’re all used to. You’ve worked with these billionaire owners who have been titans in business. Prior to them ever even getting involved with sports. What is it like working with them? And the proposition for them, these sound amazing. But is there also a money saving element to this? Is the proposition that you bring to them, not only do they help change the world and leave a great legacy of helping to save the environment, but can you also save them money in the process?

Leigh: I’ll take the Washington National Stadium, for example, if low-flow plumbing reduces water consumption by 37%, it saves 3.6 million gallons a year. If you use that lighting system, you save 21% in terms of power.

John: Right.

Leigh: If you cut, you can go energy system by energy system. And you will find that Fenway Park in the Red Sox, they put 28 solar panels and it offsets 37% of the natural gas which was used to heat the stadium’s water supply. In Safeco Field, they saved half-million dollars by cutting natural gas and electricity usage by 36% and 18% over two years. They recycle 342 tons of plastic. And you can go on and on. Citizens Park for the Phillies purchased about 250,000 renewable energy credits to offset utility power use for all of 2008 and 2009.

So yes, these savings are really huge. Philips Arena which is going to be used for the Hawks and the Thrasher is LEED-certified. They’re going to save hundreds of millions of dollars in energy costs. Also, in the NBA, you’ve got the Phoenix Suns Arena which added 1100 solar panels, which gives them enough energy to power the equivalent of 26 home games a year. So, you have huge energy savings which are coming back to teams, that are going ahead and being creative.

We met with the Minnesota Timberwolves. They’ve got the first green roof on any arena in the country, which is going to capture a million gallons of stormwater runoff, and it’s going to help in terms of how that water gets diverted away from the Mississippi River. [sigh] And so there are all sorts of ancillary benefits.

John: Sure.

Leigh: This ends up saving money. As I said, you’re going to have energy providers. So, [crosstalk]

John: So, it’s really is a misconception, Leigh, that all of our listeners should hear loud and clear from you that it’s more expensive to go green. It’s really not.

Leigh: No. There are times where, like anything, there’s an initial costs [crosstalk] to put the system in.

John: Sure.

Leigh: But then, it ends up generating massive savings over time. And so, we’ve been able to sort of show the way. And in many of these situations, it’s the wind, it’s Sun, its reflect, it’s the right surfacing, all of this is made available by the genius of American technology. It’s putting our brains back to work, with respect to moving out of a period where energy was just cheap and available to a time of more scarcity.

John: Leigh, before I even became a friend of yours and got to see you upfront and personal, in action. You were known, you made your mark, by insisting that every contract that you negotiated for your players included a clause where they gave back. And I know to date, the number is over a hundred million dollars that your athletes have donated. I mean, it’s a huge number and I want you to share that number with our audience. But is now being green another part of your mandatory clauses that you insist, that your athletes are part of this Green Revolution?

Leigh: Yes. I mean, I talked with every young athlete, about the need to be environmentally aware and to be part of this movement. Because this is the number one issue to me. If we don’t move rapidly to save our species. Remember, the planet will do just fine. The planet survived Ice Ages. The Earth is not imperiled. It’s our species and our quality of life as human beings that’s imperil. The Earth can survive anything. The dung beetle will be here, right? [laughs]

If you go back, 200 million years, the cockroach was here. But that doesn’t help you and my children very much. You know, we’ve established hundreds of high school scholarship funds, hundreds of collegiate scholarship funds. The amount of money that the athletes have raised is in the hundreds and hundreds of millions. I’ve challenged each of them to find something in their own life they’d like to leave a legacy for. Whether it’s moving single mothers into the first homes. At the [inaudible] and outfitting their homes. Or raising money for the fund for endangered species at the San Diego Zoo. Programs that address children’s literacy in Kansas City, that help with at-risk children in Seattle, that send kids to college on scholarships, each athlete finds a way to make a fundamental difference in the world and to retrace their roots.

John: Leigh, I know, our listeners are just so excited to hear you today. And I want them to also know that you do Twitter. That you live in a modern world and you’re @SteinbergSports on Twitter. And also, leighsteinberg.com if they want to learn more about you.

But I remember having dinner with you one night. And you were telling me so many amazing stories. But one of the funny stories I remember is about our children and your son and yourself watching a Cowboy football game. And I know how close you are with the Cowboy organization and with Mr. Jerry Jones and all that. And I think your son turns to you, halfway through the game and said, “Dad, how come you didn’t represent Tony Romo?” And I know you’ve had, I think what, eight number one picks?

Leigh: Well, I’ve had the very first pick in the first round of the NFL draft.

John: Eight times?

Leigh: Eight times.

John:There you go. And I know you turned to him, I know the punchline and you turn to him and you said, “Son if it was that easy, everyone would do it.”

Leigh: Well, [laughs] no. It was just invariably my children would pick as their favorite players. It didn’t matter. I could have 90 of the Pro Bowl players and if I was representing Steve Young, my son’s favorite was Joe Montana.

John: But I bring that up, not to make- I just, because my kids make make fun of me all the time, in so many ways. And not even make fun, they always are challenging us and [crosstalk]

Leigh: Oh, it didn’t matter. I mean, I could have the top 10 rated players. But why didn’t I have Randy Moss? Or I didn’t have Michael Irvin.

John: That’s right. But I brought that up for a different reason. And I brought that up because I know you also told me the story about being young and asking your pops, what he had done in the second world war to help fight the battle against global tyranny.

Leigh: Right.

John: And so, I want to know more as we end this show and leave our listeners something to think about. Why do you do what you do? We have about a minute left and I want to talk about the legacy of Leigh Steinberg.

Leigh: Well, I think I said to you, John, I was raised by a father who said, there’s no they in the world. When you look for someone to solve basic problems, the they is you, and the day is me. And I’m on this one issue.

Traumatized by the fact that our children are going to come to us and ask, didn’t we know that fossil fuel was going away? Didn’t we know that our water and our air were imperiled and water wars were coming? Did we not know that the quality of life, for the very first time in the history of this country, was about to go down and we could do something to change it? And what didn’t we know and why didn’t we do it? And I want to have an answer to that question. And I think, that at least for myself, and I don’t want to judge other people. I want to be part of that solution. Not part of the problem.

John: Leigh, we’re going to ask you to come back next year and talk about all the things that have happened over the next course here because you are one of the great leaders in the sports world. And I just want to tell you, to Mike and I and our listeners out there, inspiration is an understatement for what you do and what you’ve done in your story career. Leigh Steinberg, we are humbled and honored to have you today on our show. And I just want to tell you once again, that you are living proof that green is good.

Leigh: Thank you so much.

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John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy. And it’s the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider, and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States, and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the impact podcast. This is a really special edition because we’ve got with us, John Holden, who’s the executive producer, and the host of Earth with John Holden. Welcome to our show today, John.

John Holden: Hello, John. It’s great to be here with you.

John: You know, John, you have such a story career. You’re a 6-time Emmy Award winner, and just one of the most esteemed journalists on this whole great planet, which is sitting behind you, which I love. I love the background behind you. And before I get to asking some important questions of what’s going on, and what your career has been about, I’d love you to share with our listeners and our viewers, the John Holden story. Where did the journey begin and how did you even get here?

John H: I’m not sure how I got here with this planet behind me. But, you can find all kinds of great backgrounds these days. But, yeah, I was born in South Dakota. And as far as environmental, that might have been the first key to an interest in the environment because I grew up in a farm. And, we had a lot of acres of the farm, the beef cattle, the milk cattle. And so, you’re really in touch with the environment there. And, the thing about farming is, everything is dependent upon the weather, and how good you are at what you do with the land. So, that taught me to care for the land and taught me that you can get wiped out. Kind of like, people are doing right now, being wiped up because of climate change, and what’s happening. But there, it’s always been risky as a farmer, you know, growing up.

And then, broadcasting neighbor was Tom Brokaw from Bristol, South Dakota. He was born and went to the University of South Dakota. I’ve met him several times. I mean, a really nice guy, salt of the earth, and really was a solid guy. And I met him at several launches of the Space Shuttle over the years. And then, as far as getting into television, I went to the University of Nebraska. I loved it there. Big red football and-

John: Cornhuskers!

John H: Yeah, Cornhuskers. And I really wanted to see the game. So, I kind of went and applied to work with the University of Nebraska media department. And they said, “Oh, we need a film processor.” So, I did film processing and went to all the games free. I met all the players, met Bob Devaney before coach Tom Osborne and interviewed them. But I actually was close to always brushing shoulders of them because I’d have to pick up the film, run back during halftime of the Big Red Game, and split the defense and the offense, so that they can right away, even at halftime, go in and see, “What did you do wrong?” That’s how fast things were happening.

Then, that was getting me kind of into media. I’m not into sports other than that. I love watching football, so. And then, I was in journalism. I graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Nebraska. And, I think, what really made me think that I could make it in that is, we had great guys and women in the journalism department. Fantastic. A lot more from Omaha, Lincoln, the big cities, and Nebraska. And they were from the TV stations there. They were from the radio stations, from the son of the or owner of the many of the stations. And, we had a contest where we would all write scripts for a documentary. I’m talking about the mid-70s right now. We did a contest, and I wrote a script, and I did a script on whenever I travel across Nebraska, I’d see the remains of a town sitting there, and every time it passes, it is turning more into the Earth. It’s crumbling away and it probably been a successful town in the turn of the century, but obviously, it had died years ago.

So, I did a story. I looked up information, and I decided to do story on what makes a town live, what makes a town die. I found 2 towns next to each other. One town was nearly dying, population is all moving way, very few people left. The other town was just doing really well and flourishing. So, I did an hour documentary on, “A Tale of 2 Towns.” And I wrote, and interviewed. I mean, the reason one was successful, it was the people who was the pride, and it was the religion. They were a Mennonite type. There was a cross between Amish and Mennonite in there, but they were really strong churches, and the people and anything happened, they needed something constructed, the whole town would help them construct the barn, or whatever, something burned, they’d all get together. The other town didn’t have that. So, I did that, and that script got chosen as the best script. And, the winner got to have it produced. So, I became the producer of a documentary and it aired on PBS or Nebraska public television. And so, back when I was just a teenager, or just about turning twenty, I had my first documentary produced with all the class. I was with the Nebraska, and then, we shot the interviews and kind of do the same thing I’m doing right now. This would have been the year 1976, probably, and it aired on public television there.

John: You were off to the races as it grows.

John H: Yeah. So, from there it was on to Green Bay, Wisconsin, or stations in Nebraska. Green Bay Wisconsin with the Green Bay Packers and doing stuff with them. And then, finally went down to Miami to a show called PM Magazine, which is a nightly- yeah, and, that really got me into world stories because they needed an adventure page producer. At PM Magazine, they told me, “We don’t care what you do. We like your scripts.” At this time, I didn’t do anything on air. I’m writing and producing, wearing all those [inaudible], and shooting, editing, shooting, producing, writing. Everything but on camera. But, I find the people to put on camera and stuff. So, they said, “there’s only one thing we ask of you as you find stories around the globe, it could be anywhere, is that we can’t spend one penny. You do not have a budget, not one penny. Other than maybe a hundred bucks per diem or whatever.”

John: Wow.

John H: So, I said, “Wow, how do you do that?” So, I started looking around, and I’d look up stuff on the internet, and I’d find companies that would do exotic travel. And, I’d called them, say, “I’m with so-called PM Magazine, nightly entertainment shows.” Entertainment Tonight was its main competitor and we are beating them at the time. And I said, “I’d like to go to this-” over the Galapagos Islands is one. “I’d like to go to the Galapagos Islands and do the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin Theory.” And they said, “Oh, we’d love to have you, and we’ll take care of everything. We’ll take care of your flights. We’ll take care of your food.” And then, it became, I find places all over the world. Free food, free everything, other than the crew coming with me. We had a blast doing that.

Even went to New Guinea to discover if there’s still cannibalism, and went down this epic river in the New Guinea in search of cannibalism and found seven hundred tribes each speaking a different language. And, is there cannibalism? Yeah, they have little wars and maybe somebody will get killed and I had died from-

John: Oh my gosh.

John H: Yeah. Every village you come to, which is about every half-mile, totally different language spoken, except they would have missionary shirts on that would say Coca-Cola or something that they don’t know what it said. But, it was something from a new land or America. And, they would all speak pidgin English, they did understand that. Cannibalism simply as what my guide from Australia said, is that “Somebody gets killed, okay? And, to celebrate their heritage and their history, they all sit down and we’ll, scrape, scrape, scrape and nibble. Do a little nibble.” All gather around and nibble a little bit to celebrate their cannibalistic ancestry.

John: Wow. So when did you come up with, take all of your experiences, your education, and then, also you’re in the field, real-life experiences, and producing, and editing, and writing, and come up with this wonderful show that you have called “Earth with John Holden”?

John H: I mean, it started as a segment called “The Green Room” which was obviously about green, and then it kind of developed into Earth, because the Green Room just didn’t tell the whole story. It’s named Earth, easy. I guess really first stories for that were probably done in 2014, maybe, I mean, 2009 is when I started doing segments as environmental and I love environmental stories. I’d worked for NBC for a while and it had been a feature order and I love doing stories on people and some environmental stories and stuff. So, when I left, I became freelance way back in the 90s.

And then, in the 2000s, I started doing stuff for everybody, not just NBCn but ABC, and Fox, a lot of Fox stuff. And then, just doing stories out there. They’re always one and a half minutes to 2 minutes long and it will be people-type stories, or just crazy-type people and interesting things, but always telling a story and having a personality. And then, I just kind of- I have an interest, like I said from the beginning, in just the environment, coming from a farm. So, those were really, I think Obama would have been the president. And there was obviously interest then in saving our planet and Al Gore with what he did. So, I started [inaudible] on the time. That’s when I started doing stories, and they really took off.

John: So, for our listeners and viewers, we’ve got John Holden with us. He’s executive producer, the journalist, and the host of “Earth with John Holden”. You could find him at earthwithjohnholden.com. You can find them also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vimeo, and YouTube. You know, John, you’ve done so many stories over the years in your, no pun intended, in your story career. Who’s an individual who has significantly impacted sustainability, the circular economy revolution, and the future of the environment that stands out? I know it’s hard to choose among all your children, and I’m not trying to make you make Sophie’s choice or anything, but who’s some standouts that are inspiring to you, that you really love to cover, and that you’d love to share with our listeners and our viewers?

John H: Well, you know what? There’s a great staff at the Star Media producers and researchers. So, they’re always looking up things. Because, man, there’s so many things going on right now, and they’re such a key. Every company right now has a sustainability manager involved in marketing and stuff. So, involved in-

John: But that’s that relatively a new phenomenon.

John H: That’s new, yeah.

John: That’s relatively new.

John H: And that’s what’s happening. Now, I’m always incorporating them. But, going back to over the years of doing this, really since 2009, 2010. Star Media, to give you a little bit of a background, the company is Star Media, that I work with bunch of people, about a dozen people are the researchers, producers, and editor, and they’re coming up with ideas. When I’d found the company, you know, they look at companies who know what’s the green angle to what they really want to spend their money on because everybody wants to be thought well off.

John: Of course.

John H: I think every company I’ve ever met has an interest in the environment. And you know, you used to be, just maybe make money while now it’s make money but also do a good thing too.

John: Right.

John H: They found a person named Fisk Johnson. SC Johnson is the name of the company he owns. He’s the kind of guy born of the golden spoon, born into it from his family, with right away you’re born, all of a sudden, “Okay, you have a hundred companies under you, everything from Windex to Glade.” It’s a family product company of all the products you find in your home, okay.

John: Iconic brands that we all grew up with, iconic brands that we all grew up with.

John H: Yeah. I mean, the most common brands out there and I’ll bet you look in your house, you got thirty, forty, fifty items in your bathroom and your kitchen that were all-

John: Right.

John H: SC Johnson. They’re all separate companies and stuff and they’re all under Fisk and Fisk himself, he’s about my age, real nice guy. I thought, when I talked to him, I felt like I was talking to my brother or something. He’s not anybody you think has a lot of money. You’ll think he was just the most down to earth person you’ve ever met, and he’s a scuba diver, and forty-five years, he’s been scuba diving. And he’s noticed really how bad the oceans have gotten from plastic pollution. And he showed me just the video of what he found in like places off of Panama and Haiti and where you know the reef are wrapped in plastic and fish life are, even no matter how deep you go, even the smallest organism has remnants of plastic, they’re eating plastic. So it’s like, of course, that’s affecting us, you know. The marine life affects us too, even if they’re under the sea.

John: Sure.

John H: He’s virtually seeing and he says, there’s over 8 million tons of plastic pouring in every year and the ocean and you see just hordes of it in islands in Indonesia, China, just it is really bad. And so, what he did, he came up with an idea of how do you at least do a part in saving our oceans from plastic by partnering with a company in Bali. And so, I flew to Bali which was wonderful long flight, but nice, I saw a lot of movies all way there. And, you know, you always think of Bali is just these beautiful beaches. But when you go to Bali, yeah, you see beautiful beaches but it’s the hotel, these 4, 5-star hotels that have crews go out every day and scrape the plastic off. And yeah, then you take the picture by every wave coming in, there’s more plastic coming in. By the end of the day, there’s waste all over the beach again, when the waves come in and leave plastic and they got to clean it again. So, you go to some of the public beaches there and they’re bad. It’s just, I mean, walking on plastic and every kind of trash you can imagine. So, he thought that was a good way to start what he started for a program in partnering with a company that would that called itself a plastic bank. And plastic banks are actually just like banks we think of, only the deal and the currency of plastic, they take plastic in, and they pay the people that bring it in, in crypto or digital tokens by the pounds or by the ton of plastic. And so, you have all these people in Bali are, a lot of poor people, a lot of people that have absolutely no comprehension of how much they’re polluting our oceans, and they’re just throwing plastic, whatever. But now, “Whoa, plastic is worth something.” Now, they’re all out cleaning up, picking up plastic, going on the waters, and every day they’re cleaning the beaches, putting it in bags, and they go into town, the villages there, to a plastic bag with big bags. They weigh them and then they say, “Okay. You got a hundred pounds of plastic here. And you can have either cash or we’ll give you a digital token,” which you can use it in, even the grocery stores and stuff there in Bali, take digital tokens.

John: Wow.

John H: Yeah, so the people had learned how to save. It’s the first time they’ve ever saved and get this, if they’d gotten digital tokens are cryptocurrency, can you imagine-? I did the story a couple of years ago. Do you imagine what the price of crypto going up would some of these people might have had if they didn’t spend their tokens?

John: Right, right, right, right.

John H: Yeah. So yeah, I mean, it’s like they’re suddenly realizing, “Oh, I could make some money.” And so, it’s helping clean the waters, it’s helping clean the beaches, it’s helping clean the rivers going in, it’s helping the people with the economy and what does a bank do with the plastic? They sell back to like, Fisk Johnson who’s partnering with all of this. And he’s using all the plastic to be recycled to make his products now, like Windex, which the new Windex bottle is 100% recycled ocean plastic, 100%.

John: I didn’t realize that.

John H: Yes.

John: That’s great.

John H: And so, anyone can do that with all these products. So, he got this guy, he could do anything, just keep raking in money. But he’s just like trying to find this circular economy of saving the oceans of plastic, clean it up, turn it in for crypto, recycle, and we can use the plastic over again.

John: What a great [inaudible].

John H: Yeah. So, I hit that [inaudible] out of my mind to somebody who’s found a way that could catch on and get into more and more countries.

John: You know, John, you do all these very positive stories. You yourself were a very positive human being and you exude great energy that is uplifting but I can’t help to ask you about what we’re living through right now. Yesterday, I know you we, off the air, talked, shared a little bit about you just coming back from Europe. Yesterday in Italy, it rained thirty-four inches in twenty-four hours, which is more than the rainfall in an entire year in Seattle. It’s never happened before in all the history of that part of the world. And, you know, I live in California, literally the air quality control index in today, the air quality index in Fresno is in the 170s because of all the smoke coming down on us from the fires in Northern California. You know, where are we right now in our journey? You know, sometimes I feel like you’re in my generation which we’re both the same collective generation, inherited a diamond, but we’re turning over sort of a pile of tin to the Greta Thunberg’s or to our children and our grandchildren. How can we reverse that when all these big signals are happening in and around us? What are your thoughts?

John H: Well, any at least with these companies, like, with Earth, the secret is we’re looking at what companies are doing and every company seems to have different programs. It’s like what you just mentioned, sustainability managers. Every company’s got a sustainability manager and the departments are growing and they’re doing things like, “Okay, we’re doing this kind of a program in cleaning up our beach or our parks,” or whatever, or the recycling programs, and all. But every company is doing something and that’s growing because these people are becoming major players in companies now. And probably the first person I check with and check with a company to say, “Hey, there’s an issue facing our planet.” Maybe it’s, you know, the combustion engines or renewable energy or health care solutions or autonomous vehicles. I mean, just whatever your some issue, “Okay. What are we doing about it?”

Well, now here’s a company that’s doing something about it. So, I mean, I’m taking a company perspective and it might be a lot of companies doing that. But some companies, you know, really going over overboard and with ideas that are catching on and other companies can grab to because of all these environmental solutions, people aren’t saying, “Here’s my solutions. I don’t want anybody else to know about it. I’m putting a copyright on it.” It’s like, “Hey, this is for our planet and we want everybody to-”

John: Every company’s happy when you show up at their door like just-

John H: Oh, yeah. I’m not 60 Minutes, you know, I could begin to-

John: No. You’re [inaudible], you’re the opposite. You’re focusing on positivity. So, you’re saying you focus on the positivity of all these great iconic brands that are truly working to push back against all the damage we’ve done. And that’s how you stay positive and keep marching forward every day. By producing Earth with John Holden and focusing on positivity.

John H: Yeah. And it’s really fun. I mean, the ideas are just ranged from well, like, let me tell you one story I just did last month was the food problem, you know, food scarcity. We’re going to have 10 billion people, supposedly by the year 2050, how do you feed that many people? Is there enough land to grow that much food? So I found a guy with a company called IWI, I-W-I. He’s from Spain, but he’s starting up this all over the world. He’s got a way to make desert land farmable. Well, how do you do that? So, he goes to the desert- we shot the story in New Mexico and I’d flew in El Paso and drove a long distance until we got into the desert, right next to the border wall of Mexico. And here in the middle of the desert of New Mexico is a something out of the moonscape of canals that have been dug with water. That’s the aquifer underneath the desert sand, that saltwater. Well, what do you raise in saltwater? Oh, well, what comes from saltwater CLG. What is CLG good for? Filled with protein and it’s the omega-3. That’s CLG is the source of Omega-3 and people buy, you know, like fish pills and all that thinking, “Okay, that’s how I’m going to get my omega-3.”

Well, no, the only reason fish have omega-3 is because they eat CLG. So this guy thought, “Well, if I take CLG, the seeds and just seed the water of the deserts and you can dig down and it’s unlimited saltwater. So, he has literally fields of CLG growing in the middle of the desert that’s harvested every day. I mean, you think of one corn crop or something, you know, or I mean, soy beans or something once a year or once a season, this is every day, tons of CLG being produced and then they dry it. It’s being used for protein, for foods, for nutrients. And he calls it the super vegetable of the future and he thinks that every desert in the world can become an arable land of CLG that is going to be our food. And you can make CLD, might not taste really good, but you can make it taste good. I mean, you’d be amazed what-

John: You liked it. Like just say this, you enjoyed the taste.

John H: I didn’t like taking the CLG and just eating it raw.

John: No, no.

John H: I would have, “Hey, can I have a little pepper on it?”

John: No, no, no. But you enjoyed the product that he shares with you?

John H: Yeah.

John: Yeah, okay.

John H: The products, and I mean, what’s going to be coming down the pike are, I’m sure going to be energy bars, and whatnot, CLG [inaudible].

John: Right, right.

John H: Right now, it’s mostly the nutrients and the things for, you know, mind and your body and taking capsules, you know, just health foods that are being made from it and so they probably have about fifteen, twenty different kinds of health food, or-

John: That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful.

John H: Yeah, and he’s doing that in the deserts of Texas, the deserts of New Mexico. He’s from Spain. He’s getting people, you know, into his company that are partnering with them saying, “Let’s do the deserts of the world,” you know.

John: You know, John, when I was doing my prep work on you, which was just a joy because all you’ve done is really spread so much positivity over the length of your career. Well, like I shared with you, off the air, we need fifty more of you, really, because the rest of the news, the mainstream news, has become so negative in terms of what they’re putting out there nowadays. It’s such a darn shame, but one of the great stories I read about you goes back to your home, State of South Dakota, where you did a human interest story in the late 70s, on a gentleman, who was carving an entire mountain. Can you share a little bit about that story and what that meant to you?

John H: That’s kind of still a favorite just because it’s my first story and it was because I was getting into news at that time. I was a news reporter, although later on became just producer and stuff. And then, with MBC down the road, I got back on the air again.

John: Right.

John H: As a feature reporter. But that time, I was just getting into wanting to do people stories and this little town in Nebraska called Kearney, Nebraska and it’ll station called MTV and they said, “Hey, I like your stuff. Why don’t you just go out and find stories?” And I said, “Well, how far can I go for my story?” And they said, “Go as far as you want.” It wasn’t quite like PM magazine where they said, “as long as it doesn’t cost anything.” They gave me some money to go travel and I’d always, as a kid growing up, I’d always wanted to do a meet the guy that was carving a giant mountain in South Dakota called Crazy Horse Monument. If people have been there, it’s a monument mountain. It’s been carved down to Chief Crazy Horse, it’s the world’s largest mountain carving. It’s also known as the 8th Wonder of the world, but it’s been under carving for years. And it’s in the Black Hills of South Dakota where Mount Rushmore is the 4 faces. So I thought well, and if they’re letting me go, I just took off started driving and I thought, “I’m going to go back to South Dakota, which is the Black Hills and near the Nebraska border. So, I’m not too far out of the range, but it’s a human interest story anybody’s going to want.” So, I drove to this place where the guy was carving the mountain.

It’s a big tourist attraction, Korczak Ziolkowski, the bearded giant carving it, and he’s no longer alive. But at that time, he was at it dynamiting away. And as I drove up to the mountain, I could see blasts going off in the mountains and you can see the hand of Crazy Horse coming out in the horse’s head and the mountain itself, I think, I’m trying to remember, Korczak had worked on the Mount Rushmore in carving the 4 faces with Gutzon Borglum, who is behind the Mount Rushmore. So that’s how he knew how to carve mountains because he worked under the best. But this is Crazy Horse was forty times bigger. I mean, again, the biggest mountain carving in the world.

John: How long did it take, John? How long did it take?

John H: This can take lifetimes, the carve.

John: So, it’s still a work in progress.

John H: Still work in progress.

John: Wow.

John H: He worked on it for, I think, thirty-six years before he died on it. This would have been the year right after I got out of college. In fact, after I did that story on the Table of Two Towns, it was the year 1978, I guess ’79, and I drove up to that mountain, saw the blast going off and I was shooting my own stuff then. I was the old one-man-band. You put a camera, [inaudible[ on your shoulder, hold the mic out, you walk up and talk to people. Unfortunately, that’s the way some camera people are again back to doing that to save money, but I went into the center there at Mount Rushmore, at Crazy Horse. And there was a woman in there, and I said, “I’m from a TV station in Nebraska. I want to go interview that guy up there on the mountain that’s carving.” And she says, “Nobody goes up to bother Korczak Ziolkowski. Nobody.” She says, “You interview me.” I said, “And who are you?” She says, “I’m Ruth. I’m in charge of the lobby here or the, you know, the souvenirs shop and everything. So I’ll let you get in free. You don’t have to pay. And you can interview me and I’ll show you the little monument that he’s carving here, a little small part of it and tell you about what he’s doing up there and then through the window, maybe you can see the mountain.”

So I said, “Well, I really wanted to do more than that. I want to meet the guy.” She said, “No, no. Everybody wants to interview Korczak. We don’t let anybody interview Korczak. He’s got a mountain to carve.” Okay, so I walk outside, go to my car, get my camera out and a jeep drives up, the kids in there saying, “Hey, who are you?” And I said, “I’m from a station in Nebraska.” “What are you doing here?” I said, “I want to interview the guy that’s on the mountain. But the lady inside said I can’t go up there,” and he says, “Wait a minute, mom won’t let you go up and interview dad? Bullshit.” Excuse me, so he said, “Jump in with me.” So, I jump into them. He takes me, you know, all over to the top of the mountain. And on the top of his head, that’s being carved, and I can see explosions going off, and here’s this bearded guy with a big cowboy hat on, and we get out of the jeep, and he just turns around sees me, and he comes at me in a rage, “Who the hell are you? How the hell did you get up here?”

And I said, “Well, your son took me up here.” He says, “Well, now that you’re up here, I’m not going to take you back. Get in.” And then, I jumped in his truck and he said, “What do you know about dynamiting?” I said, “I don’t know anything about dynamite.” He said, “I’ll teach you.” And so, they said, “Here we got to get this. Set the dynamite here.” You know, we’re trying to do so. He wanted me to set things and, I mean, I didn’t like the stuff.

John: Right, right, right.

John H: And he was pointing this. He got to get this done today. I got to do that. He said, “I got 10 kids,” and all the kids are, you know, they’re all just interested in, mostly, sons, they’re all just interested in girls, “I’ve got a mountain to carve.” He started telling me a story and so I have my camera. I’m pointing it at him and every time he says, “Put that damn camera down.” He says, “That’s all you people are interested in interviews.” I said, “I got work to do.” He says, “The last person that came here to try to interview me, I told him where to go. His name was Morley Schafer from 60 Minutes,” I said, “That’s a big show. He says, “Yeah, but I said I didn’t want that guy up here.” He says, “How do I know what he’s going to ask me and I don’t have time. So I had my wife deal with him. And so, but I wouldn’t let him up here.” That’s why he said, “I’m surprised you got up here.”

So, anyway, I did finally get an interview with him and we hit it off, and pretty soon he’s telling me all his stories of everything from getting a call from, once from a drunken party in which George McGovern called, says, “Hey, Korczak, I have a friend here wants to talk to you. Can you talk to him?”, “Yeah. Who is it?” And he gets on the phone and the guy says, “Korczak, I understand you worked on the 4 faces. Is there room for another face?” And then, Korczak said to him, “Ted Kennedy,” he says, “I can tell you’re drunk and no, there’s not room for- I can’t believe you’re asking. You think this is just a big joke?” He says, “No, there’s no room for another face. And nobody’s going to carve a monument to your brother, John Kennedy.” Then, he hung up on him. I mean, that’s just one of the stories I remember him-

John: Wow.

John H: So, he’s taking me, and then, we’re doing more stories about, you know, what made him want to do this. He says there’s an Indian in this mountain and Chief Sitting Bull had come to him and said “You, White man, have your heroes while we have our heroes in the Indian lore too. We want you to uncover one and he’s in that mountain.” So, he’s started uncovering this giant mountain. And anyway, so I spent a day with him on the mountain, I know which sound like anybody, and in fact his own family now, Korczak is dead, Ruth is dead, his wife, but all sons are still working. I’d love to get together with his sons and tell them some of the stories I heard because I don’t think he would even told them the stories. But one thing he did was, he said, “I got to take you down and show you something.”

So, he took me to all the bottom of the mountain and it drove all the way down his jeep. And then, we come to the bottom of the mountain. And here’s this big door that says, “Korczak, Storyteller” in stone. And I said, “What’s that?” He says, “That’s where I’m going to live the rest of my life after I’m dead.” And then, so he said, “Here, open the door.” And I tried pulling open the door of this big giant mountain door, and I couldn’t get over it. So, he literally just shoved me aside, took it. And he’s a mountain of a man, pulls this thing open. And here’s his big chamber in the mountain underneath with a solitary coffin, or I mean, you know, tomb.

John: Like a crypt. Like he was like at a crypt.

John H: A giant crypt, yeah. So, he walks in, the sun was just a setting sun. The sun is just perfect. He walks in. He sits down on his tomb, his crypt, and he’s just sitting there stroking his big beard, and totally oblivious to me. And he says, “I’m going to like it here.” He says, “Ruth won’t come in here. She refuses to set foot, but it’s seventy-two degrees in here year-round. This is going to be a nice place to be.” And then-

John: He figured it all out.

John H: That was the last shot.

John: He figured it all out.

John H: Yeah, sitting in his tomb, underneath his mountain, and it was pretty-

John: He knew who he was. But he also knew where he was going to go. And he was good with it.

John H: Here’s the funny thing. I probably shouldn’t even tell this because I don’t know how many people visit Crazy Horse, but he said, “Hey, I want you to eat dinner with me and the family.” I said, “I don’t think your wife’s going to want me.” And he said, “No.” So, he took me, and says, “We’re going to eat.” So, he goes into this little, just modest little place home right next to where the souvenirs are and it’s a little checkerboard table, you know, with a cloth and plastic, everything just looks like, you know, very, very modest and they got some chicken and stuff laid out. And Ruth, his wife, is there, making the dinner and she looks and just glares at me. And then, Korczak says to her, “Ruth, I got a guest. He’s eating with us tonight.” She just looks at him, looks at me, and it turns back to cooking again. And then, so I ate with them. She never said a word to me. She was mad. But the family is around there. They are all eating and then, in the middle of the food that we’re reaching over, knocking it over every once in a while to get the butter, pass the pepper, pass the salt, reaching over, grabbing it.

And I say, “You know, this thing here in the middle of the table, as a sculpture, it looks a lot like your most famous sculpture up above in the souvenir shop that has Mona Lisa [inaudible] wraps around it. Nobody’s allowed to get near.” He says, “Well, yeah, this is my deal and band, or a deal and horse carving. It’s worth I don’t know how many million,” and I said, “Well, why is it sitting here in the middle of the table?” He says, “You think I’d put a multi-million dollar carving of mine, my most famous carving up where people can touch it?” He said, “No, that’s a fake.” He said, I’d have it here at the dinner so we can, you know, do whatever we want. I mean, it was, literally, fall over. They lift it up again.

John: Oh my God.

John H: That’s where his most famous carving is.

John: On the dinner table?

John H: On the dinner table, yeah, where everybody eating around it. So, if the Joukowsky family watches, “Hey, now, we know.”

John: Now, we know. Hey, for our listeners and viewers who just joined us, we’re so excited and honored to have with us today, the hosts of Earth with John Holden, John Holden himself. You can find them in earthwithjohnholden.com, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vimeo, and YouTube. John, your show truly is a bastion of possibilities and positivity. What do you think your effect has been on investors and other people who watch it to get inspired and then, they go on to either create companies that are making a difference in ESG circular economy or ESG, or they invest in companies that are doing like-minded things, to fight climate change, and create a better world for all of us?

John H: Well, you know, I mean, that’s kind of like all the stories and again, the company, Star Media, that I work with has the staff of researchers. So, they’re looking for companies that are green, that are concerned with ESG, you know, the environment, society, and governance and, you know, it always used to be that if you’re investing in things you’d best either number one to make money or maybe invest to do good, you know.

John: Right.

John H: But not one or the other because if you invest to do good, then you’re probably not making money. it’s probably costing too much. Well, now kind of like tables have turned and a lot of things now investors are looking at companies that are green that before they’ll even invest in, and that that they want to know what their environmental plans are, what they’re doing for the environment. They want to know what they’re doing for their communities and society, and they want to know that they’re going to be meeting the governance. I mean, you know, by the year 2050, we’re going to be Net Zero, is the big thing, you know. It’s all about, well, if it’s making cars, what about electric cars? You know, what’s your end, or from oil, or what about going to natural gas, you know, and in oil exploration. So, I’ve done 2 stories on a couple of companies.

One was called MFS Investment, Boston. What was the need about that is there, that was back in 1924, they started the first mutual fund. So, they invented the mutual fund that got people to the average joe to be able to invest, you know, before then, it was, you know, who knew about investing. Well, 1924, the first investment fund, they still own it. When I went to the story there. I think they’re in the Prudential Building there in downtown Boston, really neat company, their CEO is Carol Geremia. And she really was passionate about the, you know, what direction she takes investing, and they don’t even think of investing unless the company has, you know, in their portfolios, that they’re doing this green, or their doing that green and that. So, that when you invest, okay, then you’re guaranteed that whoever is your investing in is going to have a green, you know, say, or I mean, outlook, so that’s all they do. Now, from the first mutual fund now to today, they’re still doing the same, you know, responsible environmental thought. But now, it’s all about that, it’s got to be this ESG-minded in order to or else they’re not going to invest in you, you know, it’s all about that.

John: John, give us a little teaser on some shows that we’ll be looking for in 2022 that you’re either taped already or you’re planning on taping and covering. Give us a little teaser before we say goodbye for today.

John H: Okay. Well, I just got back from one trip. That was Germany, Spain. And now, the cotton fields of Tech tour, Louisiana, and in Germany, it was a company called Mubaya and what they do, you’re not going to really understand or see that name anywhere, because they do the parts that are in a lot of cars, almost all cars that make them lightweight. So, their whole thing is making cars lightweight so that they get better gas mileage. And the whole thing now is they don’t even talk about combustion engines anymore cause everybody there in Germany is going electric. And what was really interested in their showroom is that they have a 2014 Volkswagen on display called The Leader, I think it’s called the XL1. This is back in the year 2014-2015, it got one hundred kilometers per 1 liter of fuel. Okay, so put in 1 liter of fuel, you can go a hundred and that’s like going to, you know, one gallon a hundred miles, you know, and that was back in 2014. They only made 3 of them and they stopped because now it’s all about electric and it’s all about making it lightweight. So, the future cars out, it’s just going to be lightweight electric vehicles. And I mean, whether it’s Volkswagen, whether it’s, you know, the other German manufacturers of cars, it’s all going to be lightweight.

And then, in Spain, kind of interesting, it’s just got interesting too. Also, in Germany, there’s a lot of fishnets. You talk about plastic polluting our oceans. Fishnets are polluting our oceans. And so, I did a company that partnered with Aquafil in Italy and they’re taking fishnets, taken out of the ocean to make fiber and then they’re creating carpet, you know, high and carpet out of fishnet from the ocean that’s all recyclable. So, they’re also completing the circle of taking things from the ocean and using it again, making high in fiber, and then that company is called Object Carpet and you can get really great carpet, you know, that used to be fishnet from the ocean.

And then in Spain, there was a grape-growing and how sustainable grape-growing is done today and the technology to make grape growing sustainable. And one thing that hasn’t changed in centuries of grape growing is that still sustainable is they still use falcons. They have a bunch of falcons in cages that are released to go after birds that eat the grapes because they don’t want to spray the grapes, you know, that contaminates, so how do you get rid of- Right before harvest, you got this beautiful harvest ready to happen, but it’s destroyed by starlings birds. So, how do you get rid of these birds without spraying the crop? You unleash your pet falcons and eagles, they’re called Harris Eagles. And they have pet names, and they put a little hood on them, and they line them up and then they release the hoods, release them from their arms. I got to hold one too. It’s pretty neat. And then, that flies off and they scare the heck. The [inaudible] out of the birds that are out there and the rest of the stories, I’m doing this, I’m kind of like, “Well, where do I go next?”

John: Oh, right there. We’re going to have you back on to continue your great journeys and I just want to say thank you for joining us today on the Impact podcast. I wish you continued good health and success and we want you to be doing this show for the next twenty years. And guess what? I take back my words from earlier today. I don’t wish it was twenty of you. I wish we need a hundred of you telling and sharing these great stories. To our listeners and viewers out there. to find John, you could go to earthwithjohnholden.com, or find him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vimeo, or YouTube. John, thank you for being who you are and thanking you for making the earth and the world a better place. I so appreciate it. And so does everyone else that’s going to watch and listen to this show.

John H: Thank you, John, for having me on. I appreciate it.

John Shegerian: This episode of the impact podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and Impact Partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps, and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.

John Shegerian: This episode of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and Impact Partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps, and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. The find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www. closedlooppartners.com.

Hi, this is John Shegerian. I never could have imagined when we started The Green Is Good radio show back in 2006 that it would grow into a big podcast called The Green Is Good podcast. Now, we’ve evolved that podcast to the Impact Podcast, which is more inclusive and more diverse than ever before. But we did look back recently at some of our timeless Green Is Good interviews and decided to share some of them with you now. So enjoy one of our great Green Is Good episodes from our archives, and next week, I’ll be back with a fresh and new episode of the Impact Podcast. Thanks again for listening. I’m grateful to all of you. This is John Shegerian.

Voiceover: Welcome to Green Is Good, raising awareness of each individual’s impact on the environment, and helping to create a more beautiful and sustainable world. Now, here’s John Shegerian, Chairman and CEO of Electronic Recyclers International, and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome to Green Is Good. Mike, it’s so great to be in studio with you for another great edition of Green Is Good.

Mike Brady: Hard to believe, John, that another week has flown by. Where is the time going these days?

John: I don’t know. Everything becomes more compressed in this digital world that we live in, but it’s great to be here with you.

Mike: You too, sir. When I think about what you just said, I remember reading and I’m sure you did too back in the early 70s, a book called Future Shock by Alvin Toffler.

John: Yes.

Mike: Talking about how we were going to migrate. The Western world was going to migrate from a manufacturing age to an informational age and that’s where the new jobs would be. But talking about how there will be this massive shift in what we did for a living, but because of technology, we would have so much more free time. All I want to say is, Mr. Toffler, you’re partially right, but only partially.

John: That is such a great point, Mike. It’s really true. When we were much younger reading Orwell’s ’84 and all those things, who really knew? We are really living in what we thought was The Jetsons’ world.

Mike: Yeah, no kidding. It’s amazing. I think we kind of caught up to the idea that we are writing the future every day, and that’s what brings us to the point of why Green Is Good came into existence because we are really writing our future right now.

John: Mike, that’s so funny you said that. On my last plane ride, I picked up the latest Vanity Fair and I was reading about the new movie that’s coming out, which is, of course, the follow-up to Wall Street, the new Wall Street is coming out, and now Gordon Gekko has gotten out of jail. Twenty-two years later, we are here, Mike, from Greed Is Good, to Green Is Good, and you and I have arrived. Our time is now.

Mike: Who knows? Maybe we can be as successful but in a much better and more positive way than Mr. Gekko. How about that?

John: Exactly. Speaking of pop culture and movies, the issue of sports is so important to what is really now influencing our next generation and our current generation of youngsters and even adults. It used to be when you and I were much younger, the politicians were the real rock stars of our era, the JFK’s of the world, and things of that sort.

Mike: Sure.

John: But now, the Tiger Woods and the Magic Johnson’s, and the Kobe Bryant’s are truly dictating, in so many ways, our social mores, and also our buying habits and things. The importance of sports has really taken hold.

Mike: You know, you’re really right because when we were kids, it used to be anybody can grow up to be president. “What do you want to do when you grow up? I want to be the president.” Now, it’s like, “Hey, I want to play in the NBA.”

John: Or Kanye West.

Mike: Or Kanye West, right.

John: We’ve already had some amazing, great green sports, rock stars on the show. We had Leigh Steinberg.

Mike: We had super sports agent Leigh Steinberg. We had Ovie Mughelli from the Atlanta Falcons.

John: Continuing on that theme today, just a continuum of that, we have the NBA on today. We have Kathy Behrens from the NBA. Again, what a timely subject. The NBA reaches everybody, not only in the United States but around the world. It’s done such a great job of their messaging and things of that such, and also it’s the NBA Playoff time.

Mike: Well, there you go. It couldn’t be any more perfect. I love the synchronicity of it. So let’s get ready to talk to Kathy, coming up and more about the NBA, and their Green DNA on Green Is Good.

Voiceover: If a little green is good, more is even better. Now back to Green Is Good with John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to Green Is Good. And today, we’re so excited and honored to have Kathy Behrens on. She’s the executive vice president of Social Responsibility Player Programs of the National Basketball Association. Yes, folks, the NBA.

Kathy, welcome to Green Is Good, and thank you for taking the time.

Kathy Behrens: Thank you so much for having me.

John: Hey, Kathy, tell us a little bit about NBA Cares and NBA Green. I want our listeners to hear about how green the NBA really is.

Kathy: Well, NBA Cares is our social responsibility program. We have a commissioner who not only has made the NBA one of the world’s leading sports organizations but who has a tremendous passion and commitment for making sure that we do everything we can to use the power of our brand, and the celebrity of our players, and the influence that we have with kids and families and communities to make sure that we are doing everything we can to try and be leaders in social responsibility.

NBA Cares is a program that is really built on the relationships that we feel are important in our communities. We partner with some of the world’s leading nonprofit organizations. They help us determine ways that we can be committed and active in our communities, to give back, to roll up our sleeves, and do hands-on service, to do philanthropy, to create legacies in our communities where kids can and families can live, learn, or play.

Over the last couple of years, one of our relationships that has really deepened is with the NRDC and they are a fantastic partner. They have really guided us through, not only creating an awareness campaign that we can share with our fans but also very substantively things that we can do to change the way we do our business, both within our offices, within our arenas, our practice facilities, and at our events. We recognized, thanks to their guidance, that everything that we do, we are certainly not shy about the fact that we know we consume a lot and we have a big carbon footprint. We want to try to do everything we can to lessen the impact that our operations in our business has on the environment. Thanks to their leadership and their guidance, and our team’s commitment, all of our teams making tremendous commitment to understand this issue, and to change the way they operate, we’ve made a lot of strides.

We’re not there yet. I think one of the things that we’ve certainly learned and appreciated is that this is a work in progress, and it’s something where we’re fully committed to. There’s no one thing we’re doing but there’s a lot of small things and hopefully, they add up, and they make a difference.

John: Wait a second, Kathy. Let’s go back to NBA Cares. When did you and the great David Stern start this whole program at the NBA?

Kathy: We launched the NBA Cares in 2005. We have long had a tradition and commitment to giving back to the community. Something that we’re very proud of, the history of the NBA, and the commitment of our players throughout that history, giving back to the communities. Really after Hurricane Katrina, we felt that we had an increased obligation to do more and so we made a commitment when we launched NBA Cares, that we would focus on philanthropy. That we would make sure that our teams, our players, and that the league were supporting great organizations in our communities and around the world. We also made a commitment that we would roll up our sleeves and give our time. The money is important certainly and we know the value that it has for our partner organizations, but we also wanted to demonstrate that everyone can serve, everyone can roll up their sleeves and give back to the community.

We also wanted to create these legacy projects, as I mentioned. So we have worked with our partners all over the world to create over 465 places where kids and families can live, learn, or play. We’ve rebuilt houses with Rebuilding Together or built new houses with Habitat for Humanity. We’ve built playgrounds with Kaboom and new basketball courts. We’ve built Reading and Learning centers at schools and at Boys and Girls Clubs, and other after-school organizations, so that kids have access to the resources that they need, and families have the support and the foundation that they need to be successful, and to not have to worry about a roof over their head or make sure the kids have a fun and safe place to play. It’s been a great program. NBA Green has been a great part of that. A newer part of that in the last couple of years, we’ve really increased our commitment but it’s something that we care very much about.

John: It’s really amazing here, Kathy. I’m on your NBA Green website right now and it is really, really very cool. You’re talking about what you did recently, planting trees for Green Week with some of the players in different communities, about the Memphis Grizzlies, they’re planting with some of the kids. Philadelphia 76ers teaching the kids in the community the importance of recycling. This is really a great website that our listeners need to check out at www.nba.com/green. You can find out just what the commitment is on the league level. It’s awesome.

Kathy: You know one of the things that we have really done is not only the direction and guidance that we’ve gotten from the NRDC but one of the things we really do at the NBA is share information and best practices among all of our teams. We’re, obviously, incredibly competitive when it comes to the game and the action on the court, but off the court, we really focus on the things that we can learn from each other. A lot of what you see on there and the events that you see on there, and the tips that we’re sharing with our fans, and the programs that our teams are embracing are really designed to help educate our own teams as well because that’s where some of the best ideas have been generated. That’s where a lot of the change has taken place with our venues, and our practice facilities, and our office operations. It’s really important for us to share the things that matter, and the things that make a difference. So that’s been a very important part of what we’re trying to do, and the website, we hope, reflects that.

John: Kathy, does every team then have a point person that then works under your NBA Cares and NBA Green program that then you get to use as a consortium, and the best practices are then shared among the point people among each team?

Kathy: Exactly. I will say that one of the best things about the NBA, and this is really a reflection of all the people that we work with, it’s not just one point person. We have discussions about these kinds of issues. Whether it’s NBA Cares or NBA Green with our team presidents, with our owners, with the community relations directors, with the marketing teams. So it’s really something that this sort of message of social responsibility is really fully integrated into all of our businesses. Certainly at the league office but also with our teams. Yes, we do have people that are focused mostly on it or doing a large part of the job, but it’s really a commitment that’s shared across all of our teams and all of our players, very importantly. We’ve got a number of players.

Steve Nash is probably the most prominent one who is very much engaged in the environmental movement and very focused on sharing his story and making sure that his fellow players and other folks in the NBA understand that we can all do something here. Sometimes it’s a little daunting to think, “Oh, I have no idea how to reduce my carbon footprint,” but when you really look at it, you can change a light bulb, you can stop using the plastic bags at the supermarket, you can stop drinking out of plastic water bottles, you can use things that are PBA, free. I mean, it’s on, and on, and on, and that’s really what we’ve tried to share internally as well as with our fans, that this is all something that we can embrace. Small steps and small changes lead to big impact.

John: Well, as Mike and I were talking about on the intro, you do have a huge platform and a megaphone. So your players are really creating the social mores and creating leadership and legacy issues for the generation that exists now and the next generation behind it. You really do have a bigger platform than most and that’s great that Steve Nash and other players are using that platform to help lead the next generation into the Green Revolution.

Kathy: I think what’s so important is we recognize the impact that we can have. Kids look up to our players. They follow the music they listen to. They want to dress like them, play like them, act like them. We want to make sure that modeling is good behavior as much as possible. It’s something that our players care very much about as well. Any time that we can use our website or our national broadcast, our games to present good messages, we really are anxious to try to do it.

John: Does each team then, do you ask for messenger from each team in terms of one of their players, or do all the players get co-opted into the Green messaging in terms of recycling, and reducing carbon footprint? How does that really work?

Kathy: Well, we don’t like to use the word co-opt but they certainly get engaged.

John: Inspired.

Kathy: Some players certainly have a greater passion for it than others, but it’s something that a majority of the players are participating in these events. We had a number of events as you just referenced where the guys were out in the community doing beach erosion project in Miami or doing tree planting project in Dallas or a home rebuilding project in Houston. So it really runs the gamut of the kinds of events that we’re doing and certainly, it involves dozens and dozens of our players.

John: This is really something that we wouldn’t have thought would have worked but how did the NBA and the NRDC come together? Because this is wonderful that you’re two great organizations are working together. Two of the greatest organizations, we think, in the world.

Kathy: We are huge fans of the NRDC. The commissioner has been a long-standing supporter of the NRDC. Really, I give them the credit though for reaching out and trying to create a movement within the sports community. I think they now work with all of the leagues on this area. Again, this is one of those things where we want to learn what Major League Baseball or the NFL are doing in this area too. We compete for eyeballs, fans, and all of that, but we can learn from each other as well.

So we did, with here, learn from what the NRDC was doing and they helped us. They came to us and talked about ways that they could really help us change our business practices and help our teams change their business practices. It involved a considerable commitment on our part. I would say that it was something that we fully bought into, but it really was their very strong and good guiding hand that helped us identify the things that we could change. They came in and they did audits of our store and audits of our offices. They looked at things like the kind of paper we were procuring and using. They have done audits of all of our large events. When we do something like NBA All-Star, you’re talking about tens of thousands of people, not only at the game but who come to our jam session, which is a tremendous fan experience and fan festival if you will. They have helped us identify, again, small things or big things that we could do that would make a difference in the output. Then also helped us be creative in terms of how we could share that messaging with our fans.

John: Did that start in 2005, also, or was that after you started NBA Cares and started moving in this direction?

Kathy: The NBA Green stuff started in, I think, about 2007, when the NRDC created with us a greening advisor, and that advisor was done for all of our teams, again, to help them look at their various operations, to look at their recycling programs or their waste management programs, their water usage, their energy usage. So that guide took almost a year to develop. Then when we realized what we had with that guide and our team’s fully embraced it, we really started to do even more. That’s why last year, we launched our first NBA Green Week. We did our second one from April 1st through 9th this year. Again, just using that opportunity to highlight what our teams and players were doing, and to share that messaging with our fans.

John: Kathy, even though I know you said and you well said, they share best practices internally, do you compete which team is recycling more, which team is reducing their carbon footprint more? Is any of that kind of competitive stay within the NBA, and the teams, you actually rank them internally who’s doing the most?

Kathy: Not that specifically because the truth is, all of our teams are not created equal. Some of our teams don’t own and operate their own building.

John: Good point.

Kathy: Some do. Some have separate practice facilities. Some have a facility within the arena. It’s not fair to compare apples to oranges. Last year, we had a little competition on who was going to be the first arena to be LEED-certified, and Miami and Atlanta really were going at it for that certification awarding. Atlanta won, I think, by an hour or something like that.

John: How many are LEED-certified now?

Kathy: Well, those two, and then, we just had a tremendous announcement in Portland last week at the Rose Arena, the Rose Garden, which just received Gold LEED Certification, which for an existing building, it’s the first existing arena in the country to receive that certification. It’s a tremendous accomplishment and commitment on their part. Then we have a new arena coming online in Orlando and that is expected to be LEED-certified as well. That building will be open for business at the start of the next NBA season. We have an arena on the drawing board in Brooklyn that we hope will also be LEED-certified, and we have a number of other arenas that are pursuing the certification. Obviously, acquires a great commitment and a change in how you do things, but it’s really been very valuable.

John: Mike and I, a couple of weeks ago, Kathy, we had a wonderful gentleman on, Barton Alexander, who heads up corporate sustainability and social responsibility for Molson Coors. So we said, “Bart, when are you done?” And he said, “John, it’s a process. We’re never done.” So, Kathy, we’re down to the last 3 or 4 minutes here. You’ve done so much already since 2005 and 2007, amazing stuff, what does the future of NBA Green look like in the coming years?

Kathy: Well, we learned from the NRDC that this is an ongoing process too. I would just say that one of the things that we’ve also learned is that our commitment has to continue to increase. We continue to push our teams. We continue to push our players. We’re at our All-Star game, next year is going to be in Los Angeles at the Staples Center, which is a tremendously green facility and waterless urinals. It’s going to be a great location. A great opportunity for us to talk even further about what we’re doing. We already are talking about trying to do some green games and green broadcasts. We’re just going to continue to try to identify the things that we think can have an impact and share our message with our fans as often and as best as we can.

We, too, believe that this is a journey that we’re on and there’s not any one thing that we can do that’s going get us there faster, but there are lots of things that we’re committed to doing, that our teams are committed to doing and that our players are committed to doing. So we’re in it and we’re going to just keep at it, keep trying to improve, keep trying to learn, and keep trying to share. Hopefully, it will continue to matter to our fans and it will continue to raise awareness for a cause. This is all we got. There’s no other planet we’re moving to, so we got to take care of this one.

John: Kathy, we’re down to the last couple of minutes now and you’re amazing in what you’re doing, and what the great commissioner, David Stern, is doing in the whole NBA. We’re really, really thrilled and honored to have you on today. But a lot of the next generation listens to this show. They downloaded on Apple iTunes, they listen to it on the Clear Channel network across America, and they’re listening to you and they want to be the next Kathy Behrens. This is now a new position in Corporate America, in sports and entertainment, social responsibility. This position is really a brand new position. How can they be the next you? Do you have any advice for the next generation behind you?

Kathy: I would just say that the most important thing is to have a passion for the issues that matter and to be lucky enough to work at a place where the CEO is someone like David Stern, where your colleagues or people like Steve Nash and other players, and my colleagues here at the NBA, to be at a place where we’re this is a cause. Not only the green cause but just the issue of community and social responsibility. I’m very fortunate to be in an environment where it’s so important and where it matters to people. My only advice for people always when they ask me about that is if you don’t have passion for what you’re doing, then you’re not going to enjoy it or be successful. I would just encourage people to find their passion, whether it’s a cause or a commitment to a certain ideal, and to do everything they can to follow their dream and their passion.

John: You brought up a quote earlier and we didn’t identify it but it was a great quote, “Everyone could be great because everyone can serve.” That’s Dr. Martin Luther King’s quote. Was that how you were raised or did you get the bug as a professional when you were going through college, and once you landed in your job now?

Kathy: I’m happy to say that it was something that I was raised with and always encouraged by my family. I have a large family and we were all committed and encouraged to give back. My parents were always volunteering for something. We’re always interested in the issues that faced our community, or our city, or our country, or the world. It is certainly been something that I’ve always cared about and focused on. I’m happy and lucky that it’s gotten me to where I am now.

John: Kathy, we’re at the end here, but I just want to say thank you for your time. We’re so impressed and inspired by what David Stern is doing, what the entire NBA is doing, and, Kathy Behrens, what you’re doing, You are truly living proof that green is good.

Kathy: Yes, it is. Thanks, guys. I really enjoyed talking to you.

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Voiceover: If a little green is good, more is even better. Now, back to Green Is Good with John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to Green Is Good. Mike, wasn’t that inspiring, what the NBA is doing? Don’t you feel better about what’s happening?

Mike: Especially, keeping in mind what we were talking about before we even got on the phone with Kathy, from the NBA, just about how our role models have changed, and especially generationally, the impact that sports stars, in general, but superstars like Kobe and Shaq, the impact that they really have on the generations following, as well as ourselves, really shaping opinions, thoughts, and behavior as well.

John: Absolutely. For teams to be getting behind this and messaging this to all the people that they touch, both on television and in person, that’s really inspiring that we’re moving in the right direction and the NBA is doing their share. They have the NBA Cares program and the NBA Green program. Mike, you pointed out the website is amazing and giving great information. Our listeners can go to nba.com and find the Green section or the Care section, and you could read, again, all the great things that David Stern and Kathy Behrens is doing over there.

Mike: Excellent. Now, we got a second-half that I think you’re going to find exceptionally worthwhile because when we talk about defending our planet and defending nature, nobody does it better than the folks who we’re going to talk to today.

John: The NRDC. We’re so proud to work with them and highlight their great think leaders, their great visionaries, and they’re great writers. They have a great article now that’s just coming out in their onEarth magazine, “Renewable Energy Catches On in Red America.” This is fascinating, Mike, because, again, we live and we work here in Fresno, California. We broadcast our show from Fresno, California, which would be called Red America.

Mike: Absolutely, right in the heart of the Central Valley, Central San Joaquin Valley.

John: Right off the bat, I know that you and I have talked about this before. We’ve had some leaders from the great City of Fresno on with us. We lead the nation as a city in recycling.

Mike: Yeah, that is something that we’re very proud of. I had a conversation with someone just a few weekends ago at a rather large gathering over at Fresno State, and talking about recycling, and just how proud we were here in the City of Fresno that we’re number one in the nation.

John: If all politics are local, that’s what we always talk about, what’s more local? When you and I talked about different things that we can do to be greener and to help make a difference, A, our electronics, which we all are tied to, our cell phone and our PDA’s now, recycling them appropriately when we’re done using them. Then also we’ve talked before about organic food and what we put inside of ourselves, the air that we breathe. We’ve had shows on all of those issues with regards to the localness of these issues that affects all of us.

Mike: You bet. Really, nothing gets more local than what we eat every day in here, again, in the San Joaquin Valley, in the Heart of Central California. We are arguably the world’s breadbasket.

John: We are now, for sure. We know that more of the farmers locally are going organic and things of that such, but it’s still considered Red America.

We have a writer today on from the NRDC, Michael Behar, who’s done a great piece on the renewable energy movement and how it’s catching on here. Actually, the article focuses on Kern County which is right down the road from us. This is going to be a very thought-provoking and inspiring conversation with Michael Behar, so come on back to Green Is Good.

Voiceover: If a little green is good. More is even better. Now, back to Green Is Good with John Shegarian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to Green Is Good. We’re so excited today to have Michael Behar on the phone with us. Michael is in Boulder, Colorado and he’s a writer. He’s written for all great publications like Outside, Wired, Men’s Journal, Mother Jones, Popular Science, Discover, and now he has written a great article in onEarth magazine, which of course is a publication of the NRDC, and that article is titled “Renewable Energy Catches On in Red America.”

Michael Behar, welcome to Green Is Good. Thank you for taking the time today.

Michael Behar: Thank you for the enthusiastic intro.

Mike: John is definitely that, Michael. He is one of the most enthusiastic people I’ve ever met.

John: Well, we’re sitting here in Fresno, California, doing the show with you, and you’re sitting, of course, in Boulder, Colorado. So Mike Brady and I have a little experience about living in Red America and being part of the Green Revolution that Green Is Good has broadcast right here in the Heart of Red America. Tell us about your story. What was the impetus for the story and how did the whole thing evolve, and where did we wind up here? What were some of the conclusions? Start about how you came up with the storyline and how it went when you started doing your investigative work?

Michael: Well, I came up with the storyline, my editor at onEarth had heard about some things that Lorelei Oviatt, who’s the director of planning in Kern County, was doing to encourage green investment in Kern County. But we didn’t really have a lot of specifics and so I ended up doing some sort of preliminary interviews, kind of asking around, asking her, asking some other people, what’s going on down there. I could just feel there was a lot of enthusiasm that how they were approaching renewable energy investment was different.

What really intrigued me, you said, you’re right in the middle of Red America. You are and so is Kern, and I am not. I’m in Boulder, Colorado which is the exact opposite. So instituting these programs here is easy. It was really interesting to me to see how it was done in a place. where you would think there’d be a knee-jerk reaction against anything with the green label or environmental label on. As the story unfolds, we find that doesn’t turn out to be the case.

John: Well, first of all, let’s go back to step number one because I want our listeners, politicians, and other folks that listen to our show to get inspired by what we’ve learned here, what you’ve learned, and what you shared in this great article. What kind of specific steps have the planners in Kern done that have inspired and made it easier facilitated these renewable projects to get going and get approved?

Michael: Well, two things. First thing, they take an overarching approach that anything that comes into the county, business-wise, has to be good for the county. All of this is built on something that makes economic sense, that will help the county, that will bring jobs, that will raise tax dollars on property taxes, all of those things. It doesn’t matter what it is. It could be a green investment, it could be a landfill, it could be a new coal power plant, it doesn’t matter. Whatever they do., they look at it, “Is this good for Kern County?” They’re not interested in helping win[?] energy manufacturers in Spain. They want to make sure it’s good for Kern. So that’s the first thing.

The second thing is they’ve really educated themselves on basically, for lack of a better word, the sort of bureaucracy to get things done. California is a very restrictive state, for good and for bad, and they have something called the California Environmental Quality Act. That’s basically a very set of stringent conditions that you have to meet in order to do any sort of development project. Because renewable energy is kind of a new thing and county planners have been around for decades, and a lot of these people have been in these jobs their whole life, they might not know a lot about renewable energy.

In a typical county, elsewhere in the US, if a solar investor comes in, it’s sort of settles the planners and it really slows things down because they have to learn what the technology is, what’s going to happen to the land. They have to gear up in order to even approve a permit. What the Kern people did, this is Lorelei and her team, is they’ve literally almost memorized the California Environmental Quality Act. They could quote it from their heads, but they’ve really good at navigating it. Rather than being a bureaucracy that when a developer comes in and says, “You have to do this and this, and this,” and there’s all these loopholes you have to jump through, they turn the tables. They make them feel very welcomed and they guide them through the process. When you go and get a building permit to remodel your kitchen, it’s like going to war with the county. There’s always a million things and papers you have to have, and you’re always forgetting something, and it’s never smooth. They’ve turned it around. They’re saying, “Why shouldn’t we make this process move? This benefits us.”

John: So you’re saying their education, them, self-educating themselves, make it easier to facilitate when entrepreneurs or business has come to them with these great green projects, they’re able to assimilate and facilitate them at a much faster rate.

Michael: Right. They know a lot about how these different projects work, wind, solar, natural gas, and methane. They understand the technology and the impact that it could have on the land. Then they also understand the California Environmental rules. They try to figure out how to make these projects mesh with those and explain them to the investors.

Some of these wind energy investors, some of them are from California. Some are from Europe. So they don’t know at all how our rules work. Same with the solar. They need to have their hand held and that’s not something that a County Planning Department normally will do. Their job is more to, I’m not trying to criticize County Planning departments across America, but sort of set up roadblocks. The logic of that doesn’t make sense because you want development in your county.

John: How many projects do they have ongoing right now? Give a good example.

Michael: The Tehachapi wind area has been one that’s been developed for many years since the 80s in Kern County. That got stuck quite literally because they ran out of power lines. They didn’t have any way to transmit electricity out of that area. One of the big things they planned is help facilitate a huge upgrade to the power lines so that now we can get electricity to LA County and all over Southern California from this region. As soon as that happened, the wind energy investors started flooding back in. So there’s projects on private land, all around that area, and also further East and what’s called sort of Eastern Kern in Mojave. There’s another project underway, which could be close to the largest solar project in the world. That’s another one that’s happening near the San Joaquin Valley. Some of these are in the article that I mentioned.

Another interesting one is capturing methane from cows. You have a lot of cows in Kern County. There’s a lot of dairy farmers. The methane that comes off a single cow can power an entire house for a year. Think about all that going to waste.

John: Wait a second, Mike. That’s a pretty picture, Mike.

Michael: That’s not even from them passing gas. That’s just coming off the manure.

Mike: Exactly. Really, Michael, as John knows, anybody that’s driven up and down 99, through the San Joaquin Valley. Exactly. That is the smell of money.

Michael: Well, it wasn’t always the smell of money. Most of it went up into the air. Permitting that was a challenge for the Kern County planners because you have to pipe the methane to a central cleaning facility. How do you do that economically and with easements, and across private property? One of the things they did is facilitate this easement process so that all the dairy farmers can link up all their dairies with basically just PVC pipe, and they pump all the methane to one area where it’s clean and put on the PG&E pipeline. That’s totally innovative. That hadn’t been done anywhere else in the country. Without that, you would have to process the methane at each dairy, and at that point, you’re losing money.

John: Now, the strategy that Kern County came up with was self-education. Then self-education led to facilitation. Now that’s it going, what’s going on? What is the evolution been there and how is this paradigm replicable across America?

Michael: Well, one thing we should talk about to understand that is, one, a fundamental theme in the article, and that is developing these things on private land, not public lands. This is private land owned by somebody versus BLM land.

John: Michael, talk about the difference so our listeners, Mike Brady, and I get to understand that.

Michael: The public land is owned by the government. There’s lots of different types of public lands, state public land, federal public land, but let’s just call it public land owned by the government, which just means it’s owned by us, technically. We use that land. We hike on it, we hunt on it, we drive our ATVs on it, we fish on it. It’s used for a lot of things. It’s called shared use land. Bureaucratically, it’s very easy to just build renewable energy on that land because there’s much fewer restrictions and it’s not private property. You don’t have to buy the property to put anything on it. We already own it. At first, it seems “wow,” we should just put everything on public land because we don’t have to deal with private landowners, sale of land, and all the stuff but it turns out that we have a public land for a reason, for that shared use. We don’t want to give it all up and it’s also home to a lot of endangered species, forests. There’s important reasons why we can’t just put everything on public land. That’s one aspect of the story.

The other story is now when you go to private lands, you’re enriching landowners and landowners like to make money. Especially in the Central Valley, there is a lot of what they call marginal private land. These are people that own ranches, own farms that may not be producing anymore. The lands dried up because there’s no water. A lot of our produce, farming, agriculture has been outsourced. We buy our grapes from Chile now. We don’t buy them from the Central Valley. What are these people doing with this now? Well, right now, nothing. So when you go to a landowner and say, “You’re not growing anything on your land. I can put a wind turbine on it and pay you money every single month.” How are they going to refuse that?

John: Sounds like a good deal to me.

Michael: It’s a great deal for the landowners. It’s really, literally, free money.

John: Walk us through this. Private versus public. Where is the majority of this development being done down in Kern as the paradigm that we’re going to be looking at?

Michael: It’s really all over. In the Tehachapi Region in that valley, there is a lot of patchwork. It’s mostly private land, in Eastern Kern, which is I think the town is called Ridgemont, or it’s sort of Eastern Kern. It’s borders of the Mojave and the Sierra. There’s a lot of private land up there that is was used for ranching for cattle ranching, which isn’t a big industry in that area anymore. Families owned this land and they pay taxes on it, property taxes, but it’s not earning its keep anymore. It’s sad because many families who had lands for generations can’t afford the property tax, so they have to sell it.

John: That’s a great point, Michael.

Michael: So what are they going to do? Well, in my story, there’s a great example of a woman named Susan Hanson who’s had this land in her family for four generations and it hasn’t been making money. They were close to having to foreclose on it because of the high property taxes, and then a wind energy company came to them and said, “We’re going to put up 88 turbines,” on her land. Her family will never have to worry about money again. They can keep the land. They don’t even have to farm on it. Although they do. They still raise some cattle on it, but they go out for recreation on it, and it stayed in their family. There is a huge benefit to that to private landowners. When you talk to them about why to be kind of shallow, it’s all about money. Most of the people I talked to could care less about global warming and the environment, and these kinds of things. They’ll read about it but it’s not why they made the decision.

Mike: We have often talked, Michael, John, and I, with our various guests, that money and environment can actually go hand-in-hand. There’s the green side of the green movement. As you point out in your article that I’m reading right now, when you were interviewing Lorelai, she said, “This is a red conservative based county,” and we’re not Berkeley. We are embracing renewable because they are practical and what is essential to Lorelei Oviatt and her bosses, the five elected members of the County Board of Supervisors, is that renewable energy investments are creating jobs and boosting tax revenue. If the icing is grain, she says, “Okay, that’s even better.” It is good for the private owners, it is good for the bottom line, and it’s great for the county. Again, this looks like, to use the old hackneyed phrase, a real win-win.

Michael: It is. A little fine-print thing to know that I learned in this process is that if you have a ranch and so you’re paying property taxes on it, the fixed amount, based on the value of that land. If a company comes and puts a solar project on it, to create solar electricity or wind project, it raises the value of that land. It makes it more valuable because now that land is earning money. The interesting thing is the difference in the property tax value, the landowner does not have to pay. The company pays it as an investment.

When I say it’s free money, it really is free money. The landowner has spent not one cent more, and gets, in some cases, a huge income, six figures or more from these things annually. Because I was confused by that a little bit too. Well, isn’t their land going to cost more and they’ll have more in property taxes now? The investors pay that difference.

It really does actually add to the tax base. The tax roll, I think, is the term they call it, of the county, which then they can use for their schools, and the police department, and the fire department, and all of the things property taxes pay for.

John: Mike Brady, I think Michael Behar has hit upon the true meaning of green is good.

Mike: As we mentioned, Michael, at the beginning of our show, we’re talking about the old movie about Wall Street and Gordon Gekko saying, “Greed is good.” Well, now, this is a confluence of both green is good and greed is good at all. It all comes hand in hand.

John: Tell us a little bit about what other projects like the wind projects that you mean, are a lot of these projects, if you were to look at 100% of the projects, what percentage is on the public land, what is on the private land?

Michael: I don’t think I know the exact breakdown, but I would say well into the majority. There’s very little few projects on the private land.

John: I got you. You mean the opposite?

Michael: I may get the facts a little fuzzy but Senator Feinstein has actually introduced a bill, I think it was last year, and it actually was putting more restrictions on green energy development on public land.

John: It’s really all moving towards the private. This is what you’re seeing.

Michael: In California, yes. Comparatively speaking, Wyoming which is another windy place, has tried to do the same thing. They’re trying to do it a lot on public land and they have hit a lot of roadblocks.

John: Is it possible, are there farmers and other states now, even in Red America, that land is gone fallow because it doesn’t make sense to farm and they’re in the same tax or other financial crunch?

Michael: Absolutely. The problem, obviously, if you take the Midwest is that there’s no wind. You need wind and you need sun. There has to be certain factors. Sun, obviously, is everywhere, so there’s definitely potential for solar. Cows are everywhere, so you have the methane potential. So there is that option.

John: Michael, we’re down to about 5 minutes left. You’d put a lot of work into this. What did you learn that you were expecting? What did you learn that you were not expecting?

Michael: That they’re related. One thing that I wasn’t expecting was that these landowners truly weren’t really in it for the environment. I hate to say that but I really press them on it. You know, they would sort of shrug and say, “Yeah, you know.” Some of them don’t believe in global warming. “Yeah, I’m concerned about the environment.” What’s interesting to them is they call themselves “stewards of the land.” What was important to them is keeping their land, preserve, but for reasons that are a little bit different than the way we think about preservation.

That was something very interesting to me. That surprised me. I think what I learned was that how much these incentives really work, getting people to make these deals. One thing that’s tough is you have to deal with everyone in the county the same because when you put up wind on one person’s land and not on the other, they get jealous, and the other person starts to object because suddenly your neighbor is making a fortune and you’re not. So one thing that I learned through this is how Lorelai and her department was really good at trying to play that juggling act, and having to appease everybody in this process, and make them feel that they’re all a part of the process. That wasn’t something really that I expected to find as much.

John: Mike Brady and Michael Behar, who cares about what people’s real intentions are, even if it’s money-motivated, but if the result is the same, and they are netting out to be as green as the real tree huggers of this world, as stewards of the land. The result is still the same. So it’s good for them that they’re that honest about why they were doing things. I don’t think that’s a bad thing necessarily.

Michael: Not at all. This philosophy really should be applied to almost all our energy policy [crosstalk] because there should be penalties for energy pollution or energy waste, and not penalties for the other way. In that way, we’re incentivized to actually do that, and go that route. Rather than just telling us, “Yeah, you should do this because it’s good for the planet.” Well, I believe that but not everybody does.

John: Is it becoming more of the trend than what you’re seeing from writing this article and other things that you’re doing, being that you’re in the media world and you’re a writer, Michael, that green or blue Democrat, Republican, independent, doesn’t matter, it’s good politics to be green now?

Michael: That’s a hard question. I don’t think you can make that case sweeping across the whole United States. I think it’s here and there. I think our president is trying to make that case, from a federal level, but once you’re on the ground and you go county to county, from coast to coast, it’s a checkerboard. It’s very different. Some people object to it. There’s a lot of profit in the oil and natural gas industry in some states and people benefit from that. They’re hesitant to make that shift because they’re already making good money on this industry, why do we need to go another direction?

Kern is a great example because Kern makes a ton of money from oil and gas. They didn’t really need to do all this, but they just saw another opportunity because they have the wind and the sun resource, and that was a resource that was going to waste.

John: This is really great news. Your article is very inspiring and you are very inspiring on the work that you’ve done. We hope you do more green or more investigative articles like this for the Green Revolution. I think this can only make us a better country and get the information out better, Michael. I want to give a shout-out to the NRDC. For our listeners, go to their great website, nrdc.org, and also see Michael’s article online at www.onearth.org. Michael’s great article is there.

Michael Behar, we are so thankful that you spent some time with us today and you are truly living proof that green is good.

Voiceover: This program will be available for downloading in a couple of days from our station’s website. Keyword, “podcast.” Thanks for listening and join us again next week at the same time for another edition of Green Is Good.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform, revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com.

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John: Welcome to a special edition of the Impact Podcast because I have one of the people that I greatly admire, Araksya Karapetyan. She is the Good Day LA morning anchor. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Araksya.

Araksya Karapetyan: Thank you, John. Nice to meet you. I heard a lot about you, and finally, we get to do this.

John: We get to do this. I’m a huge fan of yours. Every time I’m coming through LA, I watch the news that you’re anchoring because I’m so proud of you. As an Armenian-American, that you’re hosting the Fox LA News. It just makes me so proud.

Araksya: Thank you, that means a lot.

John: You know, before we get talking about all the great work you do at Fox LA, can you share about where you were born, and your journey to get into this position as well?

Araksya: Yeah, sure. I was born in Gyumri Armenia, which is the second-largest city there in Armenia and following the earthquake in 1988. Then, went to war with Azerbaijan in 1990, and the Soviet Union began to collapse. My family and I migrated here to the United States. By the way, today happens to be 30 years of Independence for Armenia. On this day, 30 years ago, September 21st, the people of Armenia voted in a referendum to proclaim independence from seven decades of Soviet rule. It’s an important symbolic day.

We came here and my grandfather’s brother, my great uncle, had come to the United States following World War II. He had ended up going through New York, ended up in Montebello, and then came to Palos Verdes, which is the South Bay here in California, a beautiful area as we were speaking about earlier. With all of those things happening in Armenia, he arranged for us to leave everything behind and come here. That’s how I ended up here.

It’s not the typical immigrant story in the sense that we were fortunate enough to have someone who had established themselves in this country. His story is the American dream story that he brought us over had laid the foundation for us. We just got to work, and we’re able to succeed based on everything he has done to get us going. So, we were fortunate and I don’t ever take that for granted. I think about that all the time. The reason I’m sitting here talking to you, that you’re even interested in speaking with me, what I do every day. It goes back to this man who didn’t even know us but felt a sense of duty to his family. To help set them up for generations to come ((my children, their children)), who are going to benefit off of his generosity.

John: Right. Is he still alive?

Araksya: No, he passed away in 2000, seems[?] 13 now, so it has been a while. Yes, he passed away. He was 91. He lived a long life, but he was the patriarch of our family, and his absence is still there to this day. Every time I drive home, and I’m on the cliffs of Palos Verdes, I look over and see this amazing view of the ocean. I think to myself we’re in paradise, and I think about him every day.

John: That’s so nice of you because so many people forget the sacrifice that our ancestors made as immigrants. First of all, I believe I always feel closer to immigrants no matter if they’re Armenian, Filipina, or Korean. I have a connection. I think all immigrants feel connected as a DNA number one, number two. It’s so nice to always remember who sacrificed before us to give us these great opportunities that we truly have here.

Araksya: Absolutely.

John: So you come here, you’re young, little girl.

Araksya: Seven and a half.

John: Seven and a half when you’re here. Talk about growing up in America, you already have some experience growing up in Armenia. How were you received by your friends here? How did that go growing up here in the Greater Los Angeles Area?

Araksya: Well, as a child, I think we kids assimilate very quickly, and I didn’t speak a word of English. I remember going to my first day of school, it was a little intimidating. On the first day of school, I was so excited to get to wear whatever I wanted because in Armenia during the Soviet Union, I’d wear this uniform. It was this brown dress with a white apron. It wasn’t the nicest, most flattering outfit. The fact that in America, I got to go to a public school and I could wear whatever I wanted.

So, on the first day of school, I wore this pink laced, just over-the-top outfit you would wear to a wedding if you’re a flower girl. I remember my mother trying to convince me, “You don’t wear that it’s a little… People dress a little casually here.” I’m like, “Nope, it’s a special day and I’m wearing this outfit”. So we walked to school and of course, everyone was staring at me and I said, “Why is everyone staring at me, Mom?” “Oh, they know each other here, everyone knows one another.” “Not really. They were staring at me because of what I was wearing.”

I can speak English, so they enrolled me in ESL, English as a second language. I remember immediately not liking the feeling of standing out in that way and being separated in that way. My goal became coming out of that class as soon as possible, and I succeeded. I remember it didn’t take very long for me to get out because I wanted to be like everyone else and blend in and not stand apart in that sense. So, English came to me quickly.

I always credit I Love Lucy. One of the first things I ever watched when I moved to America. That’s how I learned English because she was such an animated character and you don’t need to speak English to watch and follow along with the show. I always say, she played a role in me learning English, and I began speaking English quickly, and then I got involved in everything, every sport, every activity, every club, just because I wanted to be a part of everything and not miss out.

John: When was were growing up, where did you get your news from? The internet wasn’t a big thing back then. Were you watching your news locally or nationally? Was there a news anchor that spurred your interest in going into the news industry?

Araksya: No. I didn’t grow up watching the news at all. People always say, “How did you get into this?” I don’t know, I kind of stumbled into it. I went to Syracuse University in New York. Why did I go there? I don’t even know. They gave me a grand, but I always envisioned going to the East Coast for school. [inaudible]

[laughing]

John: There are so many great schools that surrounded you, and you decided on maybe the school that’s geographically[?] the furthest from Palos Verdes, California. They are known for having a great journalism school.

Araksya: There you go. I believe everything is meant to happen the way it’s supposed to. I did not know that at the time. When I went to Syracuse, I majored in international relations and political science. After that first year, it’s so cold there. It’s miserable and like, “What am I doing? Why am I here?” Then, I decided if I’m going to suffer through these winters, I might as well leave with the degree that they’re known for, Newhouse School of Communications. It’s one of the, if not, the best school for broadcasting. I double majored, and political science became a minor. It was meant to be, but even on the day of my graduation, I looked around thinking, “What do I want to do?” All of these people already have jobs lined up. They’ve been doing these internships at TV stations. I haven’t done anything. I don’t even know if I want this. So it’s funny how things work out, and here I am.

John: That is funny. I had read your background that you went to Syracuse. It makes perfect sense. It’s the greatest journalism school in America. Oh, she was so focused that this was what she wanted and there you go. So you come out of Syracuse. You’re still a little bit unsure. So then you start paying your dues. Explain what that means in the news industry.

Araksya: It means you have to go to a small town that no one’s heard of and cover stories that you don’t care to cover and be away from family and make no money. Something I thought I could avoid doing because everyone always thinks they’ll be the exception to the rule of how things work.

I was stalling because I did not want to do all the things I just said. You couldn’t get a job here in LA. It just doesn’t work that way with no experience. I went from no internships to all seven, I had three or four internships at the same time. This is my personality. It’s all or nothing, I’m all in or all out. When I go hard, I go hard. I did all of these internships.

I went to Armenia that summer of 2006. While I was there, the story is that you go from this house to that house, eating, drinking, just doing all the touristy things, but not getting a sense of what life is. I had a camcorder that I grabbed that we had with us, and I started just kind of for fun going around talking to people. I created a little project for myself. I went to visit an orphanage and an elderly home. I talked to people on the street and did all kinds of things. I wanted to visit a jail, but they’re like, you can’t just go to the jail. This isn’t America. You don’t just walk into jail and say, “Hey, I want to take footage.” I have all these tiny tapes to this day that I always say I’ll turn into something one day, which I probably won’t, but that experience ignited my passion for journalism.

When I came back, I made a tape, I sent it out to all these places. I ended up picking up the car and just going off to Idaho Falls, a place I’ve never been in my life. I had no place to live, didn’t know anything about it, and I just went and signed a contract and made 18 thousand dollars a year and lived by myself. There were no other Armenians there. They had no idea what Armenia was. They couldn’t pronounce my name, but it was an amazing experience. At the end of it, everyone in town knew where Armenia was and everyone could perfectly pronounce my name. I had memories and friends I made that will last me a lifetime

John: You bring up a great point, Araksya. You talk about when you first came as a little seven-and-a-half-year-old girl, and how you assimilated and became part of everything, did everything because you want it to become part of it all. Does the Immigrant experience live? Does it help people succeed? Because you build up a certain resilience and grit that maybe others don’t need to have or never even had a chance to hone.

Look, you came to Palos Verdes, and you became part of the community. You went to Idaho Falls, and you replicated what you did as a seven-and-a-half-year-old.

Araksya: Yeah, that’s true. I haven’t thought about that, but you’re right. I think of the Immigrant experience probably, and what you’ve been through. You want to belong, and you want to work hard and prove to yourself and others that you’re capable of everything and anything. I also think it’s part of the personality.

It makes sense now, looking back. I’m doing what I’m doing based on my personality, which I didn’t see before my curiosity for things. My interest in people wanting to know the side I don’t necessarily agree with because I’m curious as to why people may feel the way they do. I like that I embraced that and don’t shy away from what is unfamiliar to me. I run toward where the excitement is. All of those things are part of my personality.

John: Right. That’s so interesting, but it’s so funny. You were informed by Lucille Ball. So to me, you could have gone the other way and became the next Elaine Benes or Julia Louis [inaudible], or somebody like that. That could have been right in the cards as well. You pay your dues. Idaho Falls, where did you go next?

Araksya: Portland, Oregon. First of all, for those who are not familiar with the markets in broadcasting, the smaller the town, the higher the number in the scale. Idaho Falls at that time was 182, I think, or 187. Portland was a big jump. I went from that to 50, which was great. Portland was exciting. I mean, of course, it rains and the weather’s not [inaudible].

There was nightlife, there were restaurants and things to do, and exciting people. I spent two years there. Ultimately my goal was to make my way back to Los Angeles. In the end, it came down to New York LA, or going abroad, being a foreign correspondent. I went with LA because all of my family’s here, my husband’s family’s here. We weren’t married yet, but we were dating.

Also, I wanted to be part of the Armenian community. There’s a huge Armenian community here in Los Angeles. The largest Armenian community outside of Armenia except for Russia. Russia, as a bigger one, I believe. I wanted to be part of something where I could belong and highlight the stories here, and bring up issues that otherwise would never get brought up. That’s what I ended up doing, thankfully.

John: I’ve watched you so many mornings and all the great work you’re doing. We’re going to get into that in a section. Before we do that, you’re a mom and a wife. You have two young, beautiful children.

Araksya: Yes, Sona and Sevan. Sevan is five and Sona is almost two and a half.

John: Give us a day in life. Is that [inaudible]? A wife, a mom, a professional that not only is a professional and has to be on her game every day. Also, you don’t have the luxury of when you don’t feel like dressing up or looking your best that you don’t have to. You have to present your best every day. How do you juggle all three of those? Give us a little bit of a day in the life.

Araksya: Well, it is challenging, and not everyone can do it. Not to say that it’s impossible it just takes a lot. It takes a toll especially with me because I’m trying to always be involved in so many things. It’s not just going to work and coming home. I’m always juggling events, and activities, and charities, and that sort of thing. So, the people who helped me, thankfully are my family, my husband, my mom, my sister-in-law, my sister, my whole family, if it wasn’t for those people I couldn’t do what I do.

Basically, I get up at 2:30 in the morning, which is crazy. Immediately it’s not like you slowly wake up, and make a cup of coffee and convince yourself. I just go from 0 to 60 immediately because every second counts in the morning. I have everything already set, what I’m going to wear the night before. I can’t waste time, and I just grab and get to work.

Because of COVID-19, we don’t have hair and makeup right now, but we did before. Before, I could come in and open up my laptop and prepare for the show and they would get me ready. Now, I have to do that myself as well, so it takes up time. A lot of multitasking. I’m listening to the news, I’m reading, I’m going over scripts, I’m preparing for a segment. Producers are coming in, talking to me. All of that is happening while I’m getting ready to go on the air. I get on the air at five in the morning and then we go two hours straight of the traditional newscast with my amazing co-anchor, Tony McEwing, who’s been in the business. He always says longer than I’ve been alive, which is kind of true. Then, we still have this show to do after seven. I do segments throughout until about 9 o’clock, or so.

In addition to being aware of what’s going on in the world. You need to know a little bit about everything. It’s not just sitting there and reading the teleprompter. You have to have a little knowledge about everything. After that, I’m always working on other projects, stories on putting together in an [inaudible] I’m doing. I head out of here around eleven in the morning, but I don’t just get to go home and rest. That’s where it gets hard.

Believe it or not, work is my fun time. It’s the time where I come to life and then when I leave, I have the mom job to do. That is the hardest job, much harder than this. I get home, and sometimes I sit in the driveway for a few extra minutes to mentally prepare for what’s about to happen when I walk through the front door. It’s pure chaos, I walk in, and it looks like a hurricane hit my house. I have all these dishes and the floors covered in food, and everything is a mess. I immediately clean everything up, put everyone back together, glue it all back together, then entertain the kids. I have all day with them which is wonderful, but I’m also tired.

I feel like the zombie, that’s the part I wish I could change. If I could do a better job of getting more sleep, which is a little harder right now with young kids. But if I was well-rested, I think I would be a happier person. I feel like people and all the strangers get the best of me. Even you, we just met but you’re getting the energetic Araksya here, the fun Araksya. When I leave, I’m tired Araksya, and I don’t want to talk and have fun. I just want to relax.

John: I can’t blame you. So now, you’re home with the kids all day. What time is dinner, and what time do you turn in?

Araksya: Not early enough. Last night, for example, I went to sleep around nine. That’s not much sleep, but part of that was my fault. I could have been asleep by 8:30, but I had to squeeze in an episode of The Sopranos.

John: The Sopranos [crosstalk]

Araksya: I know, 20 years too late.

John: I’m just saying that’s interesting that you have to squeeze it in.

Araksya: I love my mob shows.

John: Oh my gosh, that is so cute. Have you ever watched it before?

Araksya: Back when it was on, I had seen episodes here and there. I’ve never had sat and it from beginning to end, so I’m binging it. You know everyone binges everything these days.

John: Yeah, I know. Your generation is all a binge. It’s one big binge. Let me ask you about your children, do they watch you on television? Do they know that’s Mom up there? Do they know that you’re on in the morning?

Araksya: They do. My daughter, my older one calls me a Newser[?]. A Newser, yes.

John: That’s an interesting term. I’ve never that.

Araksya: It is. She’s so funny. I do her hair, braid her hair, get her ready when I’m home. She always says, “You should stop being a Newser and be a hair saloner[?]. You do such a good job with the hair.” It just makes [inaudible].

John: There’s no filter.

Araksya: They do watch, but not always. I think when I first came to Los Angeles, my family never really quite understood what it was that I was doing away from home because they couldn’t turn the TV and watch me. They didn’t quite understand.

When I first got here, there was a lot of excitement, “Oh my gosh, like we get to see you.” They still struggled with the fact, “Okay you went to work for 8-10 hours, but you were on for 32 minutes.” It’s when I first started reporting. “What were you doing all that time?” “You don’t understand, I have to go to a location, get the story, do the interview, right it, edit.” They still have a hard time with that.

Now that I anchor, they get to see hours of me on TV. They’re having an easier time understanding my job. Initially, there was so much excitement that they could turn on the television and see me. It was all worth it because I was constantly being encouraged to leave whatever it was that I was doing and move back home there. They supported me. I mean financially, they had to if I wouldn’t have made it. They supported me and they didn’t stand in my way. I think they still just didn’t quite get it because all my life I was told to be an attorney or doctor, which is the typical immigrant thing you get told. I will say the one person, who from the beginning told me to keep going, it would be worth, was my husband. He wasn’t my husband at the time, but my husband. He always said, “Put your head down, keep working at it, it’s going to be worth it. You’re going to be good at this.” He supported me from the beginning.

John: That’s so nice. For our listeners and our viewers, and our readers. You’re consuming the Impact Podcast today. We’re so lucky to have you with us today. Araksya Karapetyan, she’s the anchor for Good Day Fox L.A. Araksya, do you still have family in Armenia?

Araksya: I do. Yes. I do have family in Armenia. My immediate family is here in the States, but I do still have family there and I haven’t been there for quite a while. I had hoped to go, and then I became pregnant with my second daughter. The doctor advised me not to, so I missed out on that opportunity. A lot has happened obviously with COVID, as well as the past year. We’re coming up on the anniversary. The commemoration of when the war began in Armenia.

Last September 27th, 2020, which was followed by just 44 days, and after the worst anxiety I think I’ve ever experienced in my life. To do the job I do and to be dealing with that. It was a lot for me. Just coming to work and reporting on stories. Stories that sometimes felt not important for me, or frivolous or silly, or what the latest viral video was, while something of mass importance was happening. All these miles away, and then working hard to try to bring those stories to light for this community, and to make people who are not Armenian care about what was happening so many thousands of miles away with so much history that people couldn’t comprehend. It was a lot of work and pressure and stress, and it was the hardest thing I’ve probably had to experience in my whole life.

John: I want to cover those two topics. You brought up two very important topics. I want to cover where we are in Armenian history right now, where we think we’re going. I want your take on that. Before that, I want to say that I’m constantly so proud of you because when I watch you on the news, one of my favorite segments that I’ve watched you on was when you had virtually an unknown, Armenian name, [inaudible].

I was blessed in the October of 19 to meet. When I was in Armenia, I was with him at some events that he was hosting. You hosted him on your show and gave him great exposure in LA. Let’s be honest, if there’s going to be a Nobel Peace Prize, talk about a guy who deserves it. I think he sits in many ways as the founder of Moderna, was one of the great conquerors of COVID-19, one of the greatest tragedies to ever strike the entire world as we know it. I loved your interview with him and I love that you continually talk about your Armenian heritage, and bring up stories that are relevant to both our history and our future.

Before we talk about Armenia, talk about the organizations that you’re involved with. Why is it so important to never forget our roots as Armenians and to always represent them?

Araksya: Well, our history, going back to the Armenian Genocide. The reason you’re here, it shows back to the Armenian Genocide. As a result of the Armenian Genocide, Armenians are scattered all over the world. Therefore, we have to work extra hard to preserve our history, our heritage, our culture, our traditions. It’s a big challenge for all of us because we go into different countries and different communities and we assimilate. We always have this sense, at least I feel speaking for myself, a sense of duty to keep our roots alive. It’s a bit easier for me to do that. I was seven and a half when I moved here. For example, my sister and my cousins, were nine months, old one-year-old. They don’t have this same longing and the same pull that I feel towards the soil there. I feel this pulling from the roots there in my heart.

It just comes naturally to want to do stories that highlight Armenian issues and causes and organizations. I do it because I want to. I also do it because I feel as though I have this platform, and I need to use it for the betterment of our people.

I have to be honest with you, John. Well my kids, how am I going to instill what I feel in them? They were born here. They haven’t been into Armenia yet. Who knows who they’re going to marry and what happens with their children, and their children’s children. Sometimes I get really sad when I think about that because I can only control what I can control now. I can’t control what happens later. I want to make sure that we preserve our heritage.

I have these deep moments where I think about, and I go back to our history and what happened and why it is this way, why we live where we live and do what we do in a different country, yet we feel this sense of belonging yet to the motherland. It’s a unique situation, I think. I feel it’s up to me to help people in our community and to have exposure and a voice. If we are going to book a therapist to talk about a segment, I’ll find an Armenian therapist and suggest, “Hey, let’s give this person a shot where otherwise that person would not have had a shot.” It’s so important to have representation.

John: It is, and you’re doing a great job of it. When I first moved to Los Angeles from New York, I was a Chairman of the Western Region of the Armenian Assembly, I’ve always felt that we were so underrepresented, in media and politics, by the way. I still feel we’re greatly underrepresented in politics. So, it’s so great to have you as a brilliant and beautiful voice that continues to shine in a very major market, which is great. You’re doing this on a big stage. I’m very grateful for what you do, and I know there are lots of other Armenian’s there, as well.

Talk a little bit about that though, because I was in the same position you were, many moons ago when I was much younger. How do you instill upon your children all the luck and the blessings that we have to be here in America? Probably one of the greatest countries on this planet. Also never forget their roots.

My children, I always encourage to help them to go back to Armenia numerous times. They want to go back and buy a house there in the future. When are you going to start taking your children over there? What’s in your mind? Have you mapped this out?

Araksya: I can’t take extended time off. If I could, it would be to spend a good chunk of summer there in my ideal world. I think for them to have the development of the language, they need the exposure, they need to be around it. Right now, it’s becoming challenging because they’re going to school and they’re surrounded by English speakers. Although I try hard to only speak to them in Armenian and have my family only speak to them in Armenian, it’s this constant battle. I have to push and push.

They do these zoom classes with a teacher in Armenia, twice a week and 30 minutes, which is great. Yeah, it’s wonderful. It’s a great program. It’s called թութակ or t’ut’ak. In Armenian, it means parrot. It’s written as to talk, but to t’ut’ak means parrot. It gives jobs there in Armenia for these teachers, but it also allows them to interact and engage with someone and speak the language aside from me. Again, this is where you have to work even harder and push even harder if it’s important for you. It is for me to have them speak the language. I just speak English all day long.

I used to be fluent in Russian and I came to this country, and my Russian completely dwindled and faded away. I still can speak a bit and understand it. Grammatically, I hesitate to engage because I know I’m probably going to make many errors, but it’s still there deep down. If I just was exposed to it, it would come back. Language is such a wonderful thing and I don’t want to lose it. When you don’t use it, you lose it.

John: That’s true, unfortunately. Talk about social media. Social media wasn’t around when I was young, it’s become so big. What’s so interesting now, Araksya, is my friends are breaking out into different layers. They say some of my friends say, “If they don’t watch the news, they feel uninformed. If they watch the news, they sometimes feel misinformed.” Now, so many people are just focusing on social media as their news delivery service. How does that play with your career?

You used to be just called a journalist. People in your position were journalists, but now as you’ve pointed out to me before we went on the air, you’re more of a news personality. How does that bridge happen, and how do you balance being a qualified journalist? Both educationally speaking, and with all the right credentials. You paid your dues, but also being a news personality in a very Hollywood Market.

Araksya: First of all, I have this love/hate relationship with social media. I think if it weren’t for work, I wouldn’t be on it. Believe it or not, I’m more of a private person than it appears. Because it kind of has become part of the job, it goes along with it. It’s become part of my life, and I find myself, “Okay, I haven’t posted for a while. I better post something,” kind of that mindset. I get really angry like, “Why do I have to feel that way? Why do I have to feel like I have to post something? Why do I have to feel like I have to get followers? Why do I have to feel like people [inaudible] like something?” I think a lot of people have this battle now.

For me, it was part of my job and is part of my job. I do this balancing act where I do a little bit of news in my postings because I feel people expect it for me. I also find that people are more interested in the personal side of my life, right? With the kids or behind the scenes of what happens at a TV station. Behind the scenes of my life when I’m getting ready for work or what have you, how I spend my weekends. It’s this balancing act.

I also use it to highlight a lot of Armenian things. Otherwise, that would never get attention. I have to pick and choose when to do what and how much of it to do not to get people to turn away. There’s a lot that goes into it. I’ve also found that I have a different following on Instagram than I have on Facebook and Twitter. They’re very different. What I might post on Instagram, I might not necessarily post on Facebook and vice versa.

Every time you post a selfie, which I hate to do believe it or not, but I do because that gets the most attention. It’s this crazy thing where you want the important things to get attention. You better have a following and to get a follow, you need to also engage in frivolous activity, which is like a selfie or your outfit of the day or what have you, silly things. It’s this cycle and you’re feeding the beast constantly. You’re trying to keep up and it’s exhausting.

It was my New Year’s resolution and I’ve done a pretty good job of it. On Fridays, I completely disconnect until Monday, and it is a cleanse. [crosstalk]

John: I heard you’ve talked about the on the air.

Araksya: It’s so wonderful. It’s this mental-emotional, I call it a cleanse for the soul. It is great, and I encourage everyone who does social media to take a timeout.

John: Like a digital sabbatical.

Araksya: Yes. You become distracted by it. Instead of being in the moment, you’re taking a picture or video to post, but you were never in the moment because you were too busy trying to capture the moment. I lose my mind.

John: I was at an Armenian wedding on Saturday night and the groom’s father wasn’t watching his son toast him. The son was giving the most heartfelt speech. He was videoing it with his camera like, “Put the camera down. Put the phone down. Listen to your son, he’s pouring his heart out to you, thanking you for being such a great father.”

You’re right and what you’re doing is because you’re a public personality. First of all, it’s fascinating what you said, most people don’t understand that. Facebook versus Instagram versus Twitter, the science behind the different platforms. You’re right, Araksya. The art is different. The sheer, just to keep up with the numbers, and feeding the beast, has to be mentally exhausting.

Araksya: There was a time here where they were monitoring. COVID hit and everything kind of changed, but they were monitoring our social engagement. All the newsrooms here in Los Angeles, literally have this giant monitor board where it showed in a 24-hour cycle, who was most engaged and who was number one. [crosstalk]

John: Come on. You have to see a scorecard every day.

Araksya: No. I’m not kidding. Every day you walk in and it’s in front of you. Then COVID happened, everyone went and started working remotely and it didn’t even matter and no one cared. I don’t know what happened because it’s not on anymore. I am sure it still exists somewhere on the web. [crosstalk]

John: Let’s be honest, no one misses it.

Araksya: Yeah, and I was number one for a long time, but it’s because I was constantly posting and replying to every comment. It’s before I had kids so I had the time. I had kids and I just don’t have the time to respond to every single comment. I just stopped and was like, “I can’t do this anymore.”

John: Talk about where we are as a country. I’m so glad you brought up that it’s our 30th anniversary of independence that’s such an important milestone. We did go through a tragic war last year, and we’re still living with the aftermath of that. You still have family there, I have so many friends and relationships there. Where do you feel that we’re going, and how can we help our country move past these bad chapters to a better future?

Araksya: We’ll just speak on a personal level here. I just think that it is these moments that you realize how much the country of Armenia has gone through. It was a very terrible awful year that Armenia was forced to face and deal with. So many innocent young men and women lost their lives, so much blood was spilled. Armenia is very wounded right now, physically emotionally mentally. it’s tough, but today, looking back and reflecting on things, the importance of staying united and focusing on the good.

There’s so much noise and negativity out there, but seeing the light, finding the light, you being the light. Those are the things that will help Armenia make progress in the long run. There’s so much there, so many young children and young adults with so much talent and skillsets. You want them to feel like there is a future and they have a future. I think it is our responsibility again, as [inaudible] to lend a helping hand. I’m not just talking about financially money-wise, I’m talking about just visiting or showing the skills you have and what they can achieve, and how they can get there. Just always being engaged with the people there. With what happened last year, it was very difficult. I have PTSD from it, honestly. It was really bad.

John: What are some of your favorite organizations in America that you are involved?

Araksya: There are so many amazing things. Children of Armenia Fund, which I’ve been working with for a while. They’re so great and they’re based out there in New York. They are wonderful. They do so much work for the rural communities of Armenia. Giving these kids who would never have an opportunity as they do now. They have these smart centers in their building. They’re helping even people from [inaudible], and other displacements of the families. They do so much work.

I have to get a list, honestly, because there’s just so much. I’ve done so many stories like the Armenian International Medical Fund where they go and they do cochlear implants for children and soldiers. There’s a doctor here, a Japanese American doctor. On his own, pro bono, he goes several times a year to Armenia and does these surgeries for free. He’s the most amazing man, but he changes these children’s lives. If it wasn’t for him, they wouldn’t be able to do it. They’re always doing fundraising because they need these implants. These implants are not cheap.

City of Smile, that’s something helping kids who have cancer. SOAR, which is an organization for orphans. There are just so many if I could go on and on, but I’m always posting about them and sharing as much as I can to highlight some of these amazing organizations. People need help. Especially post-war, the people who didn’t end up losing their lives lost limbs or had such trauma that if not dealt with for generations to come, that’s going to be an issue. There’s a lot of need for help there.

John: Araksya, how can our listeners and viewers find you? On the news and also find you on social media, so they can follow you and continue to learn about all the great things you’re up to and all the important things you’re doing.

Araksya: I’m most active, I would say on Instagram. That’s my favorite social media outlet. Just by posting stories, you get snippets of life and news. It’s quick and I’m most engaged with that. It’s just araksyakarapetyan, common spelling. You just find me there. For Twitter, I’m least engaged with. I honestly don’t look at Twitter anymore so don’t even bother, don’t waste your time. Then Facebook, you will find me there as well. Usually, I check in there, once in a while. It’s a public page so it’s not like I have to be your friend. You can just go there and you’ll follow me along.

You can also stream our show. You don’t have to be in Los Angeles to watch in the morning. If you go to foxla.com, 5:00 am to 7:00 am actual LA time. If you hit the live little button there, you can watch the show in real-time.

John: Anywhere we are in the world we can watch you.

Araksya: Yes. Just make sure that you’re watching the Pacific Standard Time. 5:00 am to 7:00 am.

John: Araksya, I have to just tell you it’s called the Impact Show because we have people that are making important impacts on this planet. You are making such a great impact. I’m so proud of you as an Armenian-American. I’m just honored to have you today. I wish you continued success, great help. I want you to come back and share your journey with us, as you evolve as a professional and keep doing all the great work you’re doing. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Araksya: John, thank you so much! It was a pleasure meeting you, and thank you for the opportunity.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform, revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com.

John Shegerian: This episode of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and Impact partners. Closed Loops’ platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.

John: Hi. This is John Shegerian. I never could have imagined, when we started the Green is Good radio show back in 2006, that it would grow into a big podcast called The Green is Good Podcast. Now, we’ve evolved that podcast to the Impact podcast, which is more inclusive and more diverse than ever before. We did look back recently at some of our timeless Green is Good interviews and decided to share some of them with you now. Enjoy one of our great Green is Good episodes from our archives. Next week, I’ll be back with a fresh and new episode of the Impact podcast. Thanks again for listening. I’m grateful to all of you. This is John Shegerian.

Voice Over: Welcome to Green is Good, raising awareness of each individual’s impact on the environment and helping to create a more beautiful and sustainable world. Now, here is John Shegerian, Chairman and CEO of Electronic Recyclers International, and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome to Green is Good, Mike. It’s always great to be here in the studio with you.

Mike Brady: Well, there is so much. This is not just a studio. This is like a classroom for me, John, because well, it’s a classroom and recess all rolled into one, because we have so much fun every week, but also, it’s the learning, so much knowledge to[?] be had, so many people out there, not only talking the green talk, but walking the green walk.

John: Well, I agree with you Mike. It’s a classroom for me also, and we get to share with our listeners all the stuff, all the great information that we learn here every week. Today is no different than ever before, Mike. We’ve got our great friend, Seth Goldman, back with us from Honest Tea, and then we’ve got the Veggie Grill on the second after the show, so listen to this commercial, then come on back to Green is Good.

Voice Over: If a little green is good, more is even better. Now, back to Green is Good with John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

Mike: Welcome back to Green is Good. Today, we are so honored to have back on our show, Seth Goldman, the President and TEO of Honest Tea.

Welcome back to Green is Good, Seth Goldman.

Seth Goldman: Thank you. Good to be with you, guys.

Mike: Hey, Seth, we got so many good responses from all around the world after our last show. We decided we had to have you back on just to do a continuation of the progression and the evolving of Honest Tea. We’re just so thrilled that you’re back with us today. What is going on today? Where have we come? Where have you taken Honest Tea since we’ve spoken with you last?

Seth: Yeah. Well, there have been quite a few developments since we last spoke. Certainly, one of the most significant one is that the Coca-Cola Company exercised its option to buy the rest of the company. We now are owned by Coke, but we continue to operate as an independent unit, and I’m still the TEO, as I call myself, and we’re still based in Bethesda, Maryland with the same Senior Management Team and employees that we started with.

We’ve been expanding, we converted our line over to Fair Trade. That was in process when we spoke last time, but now, all of our bubble teas are Fair Trade certified, which is exciting. We just launched, this month, 2 really exciting new product lines. One is entirely new innovation called Honest CocoaNova, which is a line of infused cocoa drinks. We’ve taken cocoa and made it into a drink. It’s quite different than anything you’ve really tasted before. The other one is something we’re launching also this month. It’s a zero calorie lemonade that is sweetened organically with stevia, so there’s no calories. It’s just got a really nice taste with zero calories. It’s been a busy time [crosstalk] for sure.

Mike: Wow. All right. Well, you basically just laid out the whole show for us, because there’s so much to talk about. Let’s just start from the beginning, though. For those who weren’t lucky enough to hear your first show, share a little bit about the Seth Goldman story, your journey, how you founded Honest Tea, and what your company’s mission is.

Seth: Yep. I started Honest Tea 13 years ago. My co-founder was my professor from business school and we identified the need and the opportunity for a lot of beverages without so much sugar in them. That was really the starting premise, and we grew over time, and we converted a line toward all organic ingredients. Our position as a brand and as a company has been a commitment to health and to the environmental sustainability. Thirteen years is a long time when you’re an independent beverage company, so for us, on a steady track, expanding in the natural foods world and then beyond natural foods to some grocery and health oriented stores, and now, really, what’s happening this year and a process we started a few years ago, expanding our brand really into a much wider, mainstream audience. That’s the trajectory we’re on now.

Mike: When you started it, if you can simplify the mission, what was your simple mission when you started Honest Tea, just straight from the heart, from the TEO of Honest Tea?

Seth: Well, we take that word, honesty, seriously, Iit’s a commitment to doing things in a straightforward way, and we say that nature got it right. Our job is just to put in the bottle, so nothing fancy around. Really, the ingredients are all natural ingredients, certainly nothing artificial, and then that’s the way we seek to conduct the business, too. We tread as lightly on the earth as we can and try to respect both the Earth and our consumers, and make sure they’re taking in healthy products, and then to the extent we can respect our partners and with these fair trade partnerships, that is a great way to do that.

Mike: For our listeners out there that have their desktop, their iPad, like I’m sitting in front of my iPad now, Mike’s got his laptop in front of him, open up and look right now at Seth’s amazing website, www.honesttea.com. It’s beautiful. It’s just a gorgeous website, and it will represent your wonderful brands. There’s so much on this website.

You know, Seth, you’re one of the good guys. You’re one of the real inspirations for all eco-preneurs out there that good guys do finish first. Talk a little bit about this whole Coca-Cola thing. Last time you’re on the show, they had invested some money, but they still had the option to purchase the rest of the company. You now say they exercised that option.

Seth: Right. They were minority investor and we welcomed that investment for a few reasons. Number one, we had investors who started with us 13 years ago, who, anytime you take money from an investor, usually the expectation, and certainly in my perspective, the commitment is that you’re going to give them their money back, and ideally, with a return on it. [crosstalk] Thirteen years is a long time to hold onto anyone’s money, so we felt an obligation to make sure our investors got their money back with a return. Even more so, we’ve been expanding and continually expanding, and yet as we’ve grown, we’ve seen that there are certain channels in, really, certain parts of the country we just haven’t been able to reach because the distribution map is too challenging. The partnership with Coke enabled us to connect our brand and get distribution all across the country. Today, and this is really the first time it’s been the case, you can now find Honest Tea in every State, and for that matter, in every Coca-Cola warehouse. We have the potential, and it’s something that happens over time, to be wherever Coca-Cola products are sold. For us, that’s the opportunity to take our mission to a much deeper level.

Mike: Well, that’s the ultimate conclusion to the great beginnings that you’ve built from scratch to where you took it. You’re really seeing it to where it could have gone all the way to the end.

Seth: Right. That’s another interesting aspect to the deal. Usually, when an entrepreneur company sells to a large company, the entrepreneur usually is often the first one to go because the entrepreneur has a Maverick attitude. You need one to succeed. What’s different about this deal was that I’m still very much here. I’m still running the company. In fact, personally, I didn’t cash out. Most of my equity is still in the company, so I’m still committed to building this.

Mike: That is just great. There’s so many entrepreneurs from all of United States. We track where all the downloads go after the show airs. It goes on the iTune and we see that we get tons of downloads from South Korea, Shanghai, London, South America, so these tons of young entrepreneurs that are always e-mailing Mike and I after shows, they love to have, we love when we have entrepreneurs like you want[?]. The morning after they exercise the option, [crosstalk] obviously, you just shared the great part about it, because truly, your wonderful brand is truly going to then get full sell through, all the networks in the markets that some people never get to see. When you wake up the next morning, is there a little sadness? What’s going on in your head?

Seth: It’s a very fair question. We’re now 8 weeks since the deal was closed, and I can tell you that it really doesn’t feel any different. Maybe there’s something wrong with that. Maybe I should be easing up on the the gas a little bit or taking a little time to smell the flowers[?]. What we do is so addictive, fun, and so fulfilling, that I still feel the urgency, and I see both the need and the opportunity, both in terms of where the American diet is.

I was just on this obesity panel in Cleveland last week, and there really is a crisis going on there. We’ve got some real needs that need to be addressed, and then obviously, the environmental issues. I know I don’t have to preach to you all about how serious the situation is and and how important it is to start implementing solutions, so I’m still driven by that. It gets me up every morning and I certainly don’t feel any less in control of the business than I did before the deal.

I will say, this is by design. I’ve talked to enough other entrepreneurs who, in fact, one of them was told, a green entrepreneur was told by his board, “Look, we’re going to sell the company and then you can go do what you want to do.” He said, “But I am doing what I want to do,” and I felt the same way, and so I was careful not to sort of sign myself out of it, out of what I like doing.

Mike: Well, you structured the deal, so it would really be a great partnership and it will be a win-win for both sides. That’s kudos to you, Seth, for [crosstalk] making it work. Seriously, not many people can really pull off the art and science of structuring that kind of deal with a wonderful and legendary brand like Coca-Cola, and you’ve done it. We’re really proud of you. That’s what makes you great at what you do.

Talk a little bit about now, let’s go back to the Fair Trade certified. Again, when you came on last time, you’re in the process, now it’s done. What does that mean? Break it down to layman’s terms so our listeners can get as excited as you are about it.

Seth: Yeah. Well, the first thing it means is that we now have third-party monitoring to make sure all the working conditions and all the tea gardens that we source have been inspected. Meaning, don’t just take our word for it. There’s a trusted entity that’s out there looking at the working conditions to make sure those are what we expect them to be. That, obviously, helps me sleep at night.

On top of that, we’re directing a portion of the sales, whenever we buy tea, a portion of the sales goes back to these communities for them to invest, as they see appropriate. Sometimes, it goes to help them create their own micro-enterprise loan fund, and that could be everything, from someone buying cows to help supply milk, or be part of the garden, or maybe one of the loans went to help one of the people of the village start an orchid business. It’s just all kinds of different ways that we’re helping these communities attain their own measure of economic self-sufficiency. That’s really, obviously, the biggest thing, the biggest impact we have on these communities is by buying tea. That’s really what the single biggest driver of economic [crosstalk], but to the extent that we can do it in a way that really helps them enhance their own economic condition is something that’s certainly consistent with our mission.

Mike: That’s great. That makes a lot of sense, and I see why you’re so excited about it. That even makes the honest part of your process, it even just validates it more, even though you’ve been doing it the right way from day one, it’s great to get that Fair Trade certification.

Talk a little bit about the National Forest Foundation. I’ve read it myself in the papers that you now have teamed up with them to plant trees across United States. Why the National Forest Foundation partnering with Honest Tea? Explain the relationship of the nexus there.

Seth: Well, there’s a fun back story to this, which actually goes back to our roots. When we started the company back in 1998, Barry and I were just finalizing the labels, and literally, at the eleventh hour, I said, “Hey, I want to just put a little logo on the back of the label,” and it’s a circle with a tree on it. You’ll still see it on the back of our bottles, and it says, “Plant a tree,” and it’s got a little picture of a tree. Barry said, “Well, what does that mean?” I said, this is back in 1998, “I don’t know exactly what it means, but it’s a commitment that we’re going to be doing more than just moving around boxes of liquid.” What we’ve seen over the years, obviously, the first step was making our product organic, and that was sort of a commitment to building something, but what’s been really exciting this year is we are literally planting trees. We have a promotion that we’re doing with retailers, when a consumer buys a certain amount of product, they can do a few things. Number one, they can get a reusable shopping bag, which is a more sustainable step[?], but they also have the ability to go on to our Facebook page and plant trees without having to get their hands dirty. It’s a way for us to help, and the trees are specifically planted in State parks, places where there are either through fire or through other environmental problems, there’s a real need to restore the greenery. Obviously, we all know the benefits of trees, it’s not only the shade and the beauty, but the role they play in helping convert CO2 back into oxygen. There’s a fundamental part of our own sustainability connected to trees. This is a really exciting partnership for us.

Mike: How many trees? What’s your goal?

Seth: We’re targeting 50,000 trees. Last year, we planted 10,000. This year, we’re hoping to both plant 50,000 trees and to give out over 100,000 reusable shopping bags. Every year, we grow, and the impact grows, as well.

Mike: Well, growing fivefold as far as planting the trees, Seth, I think we can all breathe a lot easier, thanks to your efforts.

Seth: I hope so.

Mike: For those again who just joined our show, please, we’re so honored today to have Seth Goldman, the TEO, President, and Founder of Honest Tea, on with us today. If you got your iPad or laptop in front of you, tune into his website. It is just amazing. www.honesttea.com. Going about what we were just talking about, on the website, there’s a beautiful banner that talks about the Plant a Tree program and how it works with regards to the forest and what’s in use with the bags that you give out.

Also, Seth, here, there’s something that says, “Rethink what you drink, drinkorganic.com. Watch the rap battle.” Wait a second. Now, what is this?

Seth: This one’s a lot of fun and this was really fun to do, especially on the heels[?] of the Coke deal, because they think the first instinct people think of, “Oh, you signed a deal with Coke and you start acting corporate. You start thinking conservatively,” and I won’t say we did it just because of that, but my longtime friend and board member, Gary Hirshberg from Stonyfield Farm, recently did a rap called “Just Eat Organic”. It’s a lot of fun and very informative, and he put on his[?} website. The tradition where rappers sort of start cues or take up response raps to each other, I wanted to point out that, “Yes. It’s important to eat organic, but you also have to rethink what you drink.” We got a lot of our employees and my son to join in putting together a two-minute rap video. It was a lot of fun. My favorite line in there was, “Middle-aged guys rapping, what could be sadder? I’ll tell you, homies[?], what you put in your bladder.” Talk about organic and why it’s important.

My oldest son is off to college next year and it was one chance to make sure he got embarrassed before he heads off to school.

John: That’s awesome.

Mike: That is awesome. Well, rapping aside, when you scroll down on your page, again, on your landing page, there’s beautiful photos of your drinks. I want to talk a little bit about them because some of them, you didn’t have before when I’ve started drinking your drink. For instance, I see Honest Kids. When did you launch Honest Kids, and how’s that doing?

Seth: That’s been on fire. In 2007, we had started selling our Honest [inaudible] line, which is a line of drinks with juice in them. At the same time that that line started to grow, my middle son came to me one day and said, “Hey, Dad, how come you sell all these healthy drinks to adults, but you put really sugary drinks in my lunchbox?” He totally caught me. I, without thinking like a lot of people was just buying, what we put in the store, and knew he needed a drink at lunch, so I looked at the calorie profile and there’s 100 calories per pouch. I said, “Oh, my gosh, that’s more sugar in that drink per ounce than a can of soda.” [crosstalk] That was really one of the founding motivations for launching a line of pouched Honest Kids, which is a pouched drink for kids. It’s not only for kids, by the way, but it is, obviously, the packaging of the pouch is perfect for a lunchbox. That line, last year, was almost 30% of our sales. [crosstalk] It’s really exploded in an exciting way, and obviously, it’s something that’s great for kids and also more sustainable because it is organic.

Mike: Then, I see next to that, you have Honest Kombucha. Kombucha tea seems to have been taken off. Talk a little bit about the launch and then how’s it come[?].

Seth: For us, it took off and then it faded away. That was a really fun line. We brought it out last year. It got a great response, but there were some challenges with Kombucha. It’s a fermented product. [crosstalk] It has some alcohol content, and what we found was, number one, the federal regulations around alcohol have been evolving. One of the things that we saw where it was headed was that if the product had the potential to become alcohol content increase, it would be regulated in a different way, and that’s a challenge. If someone didn’t store it the right way or was left on a loading dock and not kept cold, it could keep fermenting. We, reluctantly, have discontinued that line. We remember it fondly, but as much as we live with risky [crosstalk] entrepreneurs, that was one that was [crosstalk] a little beyond what we wanted to be comfortable with.

Mike: While I tried it, and it was delicious, I got to just tell you. I just want you to know, you have a family.

Seth: We do miss it.

Mike: Hey, so talk a little bit, at the top of the show, you talked about some of the new brands you just have out. They’re real exciting. Share that with our listeners.

Seth: Sure. This was a really exciting concept. It’s something we learned about 5 years ago, believe it or not, and it just took a long time to get to market. Cocoa is a really wonderful ingredient. It has natural antioxidants in it. It’s got theobromine and a whole array of health properties to it. Often, people don’t associate cocoa as a healthy product as they often get it in the form of chocolate, which has additional calories and fat. We said, “Well, what if you could take the health properties of cocoa and make them into a drink?” We worked together with the Hershey Company to develop this technology that enabled us to do that. The line, called Honest CocoaNova, comes in 3 varieties as a mint, a cherry and a mocha. It’s just hitting the market this month, and it’s primarily in the natural food stores, so you’ll see it in Whole Foods and natural foods retailers, but I expect it’ll expand beyond that, too, because it’s getting a phenomenal response. It’s really wonderful. You sort of get your chocolate fix, if that’s what you’re looking for, but with only 50 calories per bottle.

Mike: Right. Wonderful. Talk a little bit about also, what’s the next steps? Where’s the evolution? Besides your new drink line, [crosstalk] where do you want to go now? You’ve done it. You’ve grown this thing, and this wonderful company is growing going up to be the tree that you want it to be, and you’re going to get the distribution you’ve always dreamed about. What’s next? What are you seeing [crosstalk] on the horizon?

Seth: That’s really still at a very early stage. As much as we feel like we have made a lot of progress, I don’t want to, in any way, minimize because I know it’s been a lot of work. Now, we’re just getting started with the chance to make this a national beverage and a mainstream beverage, and one that people think about. I’d say, after all these years of work, now, we have the platform to make this a national brand. The challenge now is, we need to reach people and we need to be relevant to people who aren’t maybe our natural or our first audience, people who don’t necessarily understand what organic means. For a lot of people, we’re going to be the first organic product they taste. We’re launching this month in 1,400 Walmart stores across the country, and that’s a totally new channel. People there aren’t necessarily as familiar with what organic is, but Walmart is the largest retailer, overall, of organic foods just because I guess they’re the largest retailer of just about everything. Once again, it’s a chance to reach new people. Our challenge will be, how do we make sure we can, number one, gain access to those people? How do those people find out about our product? How do they be attracted to it? How do they start talking about it? How do they start making it a part of their daily habit?

Mike: Right. We’ve had the great people from Walmart on the show, and we’re so excited they’re going to be carrying your line of products because what we’ve learned about Walmart, is when they really do something, and they make a decision to carry your brand, they really get to move the needle.

Seth: Yeah, and they have this commitment to making healthier products more accessible. We fit very much in line with that.

Mike: Oh, that is just great news. You know, Seth, unfortunately, we’re down to the last 2 minutes or so. Some pearls of wisdom for our budding entrepreneurs out there, and also some things to do to be more green because we know that you really talk an amazing talk, but you walk a great walk. Share just some last thoughts with our listeners out there.

Seth: I think one important thing is to make sure you really stand for something and stick to it. As I look back now, 13 years, there were, and there still are occasions where someone says, “Hey, you know what, if you made this product a little bit sweeter, you could sell a lot more of it.” Well, it’s true, that’s where people’s appetite were, but if we had done that, we would have diluted what the brand stood for. Make sure you know what your brand is about, what your enterprise is about, and really stick to that. It doesn’t mean you don’t evolve, and obviously, we have evolved as a company and as a brand, but you really got to make sure you have a singular, differentiated reason for being, and then make sure that shines through. The only other thing I’d say is make sure you can communicate that point of difference, not just to yourself, but to your team. That’s why they understand that’s what it’s about. If you do that work well and you hire people who share that vision, everybody else will get it, and eventually, it will come on board.

Mike: Well, Seth, well said. We’re so honored to have you back. We’re going to invite you back again because [crosstalk] you’re always one of our great shows, and we know, for our listeners out there, please go to Seth’s beautiful website, www.honesttea.com. Also, drink Honest Tea and plant the tree.

Seth Goldman, you’re an amazing eco-prenuer and TEO, and truly living proof that green is good.

Voice Over: If a little green is good, more is even better. Now, back to Green is Good with John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to Green is Good, and Mike, Seth Goldman, again, proves to be a green rock star.

Mike: What a cool guy and just so humble. I really like that rap song he was talking about that his son did.

John: I loved it, too. Again drink Honest Tea, plant a tree, that’s a simple message for all of us out there to support Seth’s great brand. If you’d like the beverage half of green is good today, Mike, our listeners are going to love the second half. It’s the food half of Green is Good. We’ve got on the second half for the show, Greg Dollarhyde the CEO of Veggie Grill. Everyone should listen to this commercial and then come on back to Green is Good.

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Advertiser: If a little green is good, more is even better. Now, back to Green is Good with John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

Mike: Welcome back to Green is Good, and we’re so honored to have with us today, hospitality and restauranteur, rock star, Greg Dollarhyde.

Greg, welcome to Green is Good.

Greg Dollarhyde: Mike and John, hi. How are you doing?

Mike: We are great today in Fresno, California, and you’re down in the Manhattan Beach area?

Greg: Yeah, our headquarters are in Manhattan Beach and all our restaurants are located in Los Angeles.

Mike: Well, Greg, we have you on today because you’re the CEO of Veggie Grill. We’re going to talk a lot about that on today’s show, but we want to talk a little bit about your fascinating journey throughout your career and how you’ve got to where you are today. Your resume, I could spend all 23 minutes, literally sharing with our great listeners out there, your amazing resume, but I want you to share it instead. Your journey includes TGIF’s, Pizza Hut, and Baja Fresh before he ever got to become the CEO of Veggie Grill. Share with us a little bit about that journey.

Greg: Well, I started out in Southern California, washing dishes and preparing food like a lot of people in the restaurant business. I know a lot of CEOs in restaurant chains started out exactly the same way. They just got into the business, liked it, got bitten by the bug. Growing up from there, I ran kitchens and ran a restaurant as a general manager, and had a chance to go work for a chain called Victoria Station a long time ago, where I ran into one of the founders. He said, “You can come work for us. I think you got to go back to school,” because I didn’t finish college. They talked me into going to Cornell, and I went to the Cornell Hotel School and the Cornell Business School. After that, my horizons really opened up, my eyes, really opened up. I grew up, pretty much on the beach in Southern California, and going back to Ithaca, New York with my sandals. I learned a lot about what business was about.

I was able to take that that experience in the restaurant business, as well as the training from Cornell, and landed as the Assistant to the President of TGI Friday’s when it had 19 restaurants. [crosstalk] The reason I went there is because it was doing something no one was doing. It was huge volumes, very popular, and the fern bar business was a big hit. It’s back in the magical period in the United States after birth control and before AIDS. You can imagine, TGI Friday’s, those days was just one of the places to be. [crosstalk] That’s how it started. I just stayed in the business the whole time, and always tried to create value, look for opportunities for growth. I really loved the growth business, and that’s where you have the most fun when you watch people build their careers and build their fortunes, and grow.

John: How far did you take TGIF?

Greg: I’m sorry?

John: How far did you take it? How many locations when you exited TGIF?

Greg: When I left TGI Friday’s, they have 125 locations, on its way to being in [crosstalk] 40 different countries. There’s been many successive presidents after that.

John: What did you do over at Pizza Hut and why did that add to the great experience that you have?

Greg: Well, Pizza Hut, what I learned there was just throughput. I worked in delivery while I was General Manager and Vice President, a new concept development for pizza. What that meant was trying to get pizza in different places like in stadiums, malls, and drive-through units. We were testing a lot of different formats for Pizza Hut, but the most accessible format that I was responsible for was the airport. We had just started going to the airport. [crosstalk] now, it’s hard to go to the airport and not find a Pizza Hut, the Personal Pan Pizzas. That program, we are rolling out with Marriott, which was host the time, also, trying to figure out what you can do to little pizzas in a stadium in a sleeve, and take it back to your seat and enjoy your pizza. That’s rapid throughput in a Stadium. When you get to halftime, here you go. You better have the food ready, and get it moving. That was great experience for me, and also deliver units, where you’re dealing with a whole different animal where you can get pizzas out in 12 minutes and get them in the car, get them to someone’s house, for, hopefully, 30 minutes from the time they call. I learned a lot about systems and throughput and sort of like a big [inaudible] PepsiCo was a 200,000 employee company, so there was a lot to learn?

John: Wow. Then you ended up at Baja Fresh.

Greg: Yeah. We bought Baja Fresh with the financial partners on the East Coast. I led the team to buy Baja from Jimmy Magglos when he had founded it 10 years before taking a third trustee debt[?] in his house and a loan from his mom to start the first Baja Fresh. It’s one of the great success stories. I met Jimmy in 1997. He wanted to get some money off the table, so we bought 80% of the company from him in ’98, and then we [inaudible] was delusional along the way, of course, as you kept raising money to [crosstalk]. We went from 30 restaurants to about 270 in 4 years. I know he ended up selling it to Wendy’s. When we were getting ready to go public, Wendy’s made an offer. We couldn’t really refuse all cash, [crosstalk] $285 million. It was time to let them take the reign[?].

John: Again, a great brand. My kids love that place. My wife and I love it. You could eat very healthy there. Now, we’re seeing the migration in your journeyStart sharing with our listeners, please, Greg, the Veggie Grill story and how you ended up to be the CEO. Obviously, you really are a hospitality rock star. Talk about meeting the founders and and how you saw that this is the future of food.

Greg: I’ll have a million things about Veggie Grill, they’re fantastic, besides the guys who founded it, but basically, in the early ’90s, I started seeing that the restaurant business, there was this new way of eating called “Good food, fast”. It wasn’t called fast-casual back then. What it was was a way to, unlike fast food, QSR food, we’re drive-thru and kind of heat lamp-y kind of food, and the like, it wasn’t really good back in the late ’80s, early 90s. You had casual theme. like Friday’s and Applebee’s, and all that. There were sit-down restaurants with hostesses and waiters. It was this way of eating that was coming around where you go to counter, get much better food than fast food, but not had to deal with servers, bartenders, hostesses, and all that in a sit-down restaurant.

This fast-casual thing really got me interested in the business because it’s smaller footprints, less investment, but you still have great food and a lot of satisfied customers. That’s what Baja Fresh was, fast-casual, company I just was running, Zoës Kitchen, fast-casual. Chipotle, one of the most popular restaurants for us, today, in America, is fast-casual. [crosstalk] Veggir Grill is the same thing, fantastic food, fast-casual, but with a really important twist. That is, the food is incredibly delicious and indulgent, like rich, but it’s 100% plant-based. No butter, no eggs, no animal fat, no trans fats, no high fructose corn syrup, nothing. All really clean food.

I got introduced to Pillan and Kevin about a year and a half ago. I’m always out, looking at restaurants, especially in fast casual. Some friends of ours introduced this, and I went down to their second restaurant they had in El Segundo. I was blown away by the food. “Wow, this is amazingly good for the fact that it’s 100% plant-based,” You think of vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based food, you think of bland, mushy bowls of food, a lot of salad, and all that kind of stuff, but this was burgers, fries, fried chicken sandwich formats, beautiful salads that would be the envy of Cheesecake Factory, and it was all in this 2,500 square-foot restaurant. You were cranking it out in this little, tiny kitchen. I was blown away. Of course, my investment in other restaurant [inaudible] has got going. “What are you guys doing?” They invited me on to their Board of Advisors.

Last summer, I made a small investment in the company. They wouldn’t want to make me make a very big investment because they didn’t need the money. This winter, they invited me on to the Board of Directors. I knew they were talking about growing, taking this thing to the next level, and I said, “Well, what are you guys going to do for a CEO?” They said, “Well, funny, we were going to ask you the same question. What are you doing?” Conversations kept going, and pretty soon, we realized we could strike a deal that everybody would win. I’m really excited about what the future of this brand looks like.

John: Wow. I’m really excited for the country, too. For those who just joined us, we are so honored to have Greg Dollarhyde on. He’s the CEO of Veggie Grill. Mike and I have our webs opened. If you have got your iPad or your laptop in front of you, open up to their great website, veggiegrill.com. I’ve got the menu in front of me, Mike. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving, looking at this amazing menu here.

Mike: That’s why I have been letting you do all the talking, John. I’ve been trying to not drool too much. Seriously, Greg, I’m looking this over. Number one, I’m looking at the price point. Your price point is right on, partner, with any restaurant. I mean, I’m looking at it and it’s really right there, like any restaurants you’d go to, but what’s amazing to me, I look at these chicken dishes. First, the picture of the chicken salad and all of that, I’m thinking, “Wait a second. Vegetarian chicken?” I’m looking to see how it’s made, just a brief description. They’d go on to the menu, not only Santa Fe crispy chicken, but you’ve also got the beef lovers taken care of. If they want to start to migrate towards a vegetarian way of eating, you’ve got carne asada there, the All-American burger, you’ve got veggie cheeseburgers, Chipotle barbecue. This looks amazing. Like John, I’m really hungry, and I wish we were sitting and doing this radio show inside your restaurant.

John: Exactly.

Greg: Someday, if you guys want to do a live remote, we’ll empty the place and you can fire it up. We’ll make everything on the menu.

Mike: We might take you up on that. We’re not that far away from you. Honestly, this looks amazing.

Talk about this. Vegan food is becoming the rage. From Bill Clinton to Oprah Winfrey, everyone’s talking about vegan food. Now, I love eating vegan food. Share with our listeners. What’s the biggest myth, Greg? What’s the biggest hurdle that you have to overcome when you talk about plant-based vegan food?

Greg: Yeah. Well, first off is the guys. Educated women who are worried about how they look and how they feel, they get it right away. They come try us. They’re the early adopters. They’re the first ones. When we open up a restaurant and a new market, they’re the first ones in, and they know exactly what they want. They want All Hail Kale Salad. They want the lighter food. They jump right on it, and they tell their friends. When you open up a restaurant, a Veggie Grill, for the first time, you see a lot of women between the ages of 25 and 55, usually pretty well-educated or very hip, they’re the first ones in. [crosstalk]

What happens is, they start realizing that there’s food there for the guys. The guys are typically like, “I don’t like vegetarian food. I don’t want to eat a bunch of brown rice and sautéed vegetables, I want something that’ll stick to my ribs. I’m hungry.” [crosstalk] What’s amazing, this is what really got me most excited about Veggie Grill, besides I like the food, it’s very diligent and delicious. What got me excited about it? I was in these restaurants and these restaurants everybody, from cops to yogis. You’ve got big, burly policeman in there. They’re having a burger or chicken sandwich, and they don’t know that it’s 100% plant-based. We don’t bother them with information they don’t ask. They just eat the food and come and go. You have the yoga crowd, and those people, they’re seeking out vegan-based food.

The myth, I think, that we’re trying to overcome, is that [inaudible] everybody just bland and mushy, sautéed vegetables, salads, and bowls. Sometimes, the vegetarian restaurants are slow and they’re expensive. We try to make this fast and affordable. You also get service in the dining room that you would get in any other fast-casual, even when a little more people come by and refill your teas, they take your plates, but there’s no tipping. You’ve got the combination of delicious food, fair price, great crowd of people, and a menu that really works across the spectrum of people who are vegans and vegetarians, over to from the cops to the yogis, they’re in there.

Mike: We’re looking at this menu here, Chillin’ Chicken, Veggie Steak, Too Good Tempe, I’m starving here. Talk about, like is your chicken your biggest seller, and what’s the secret to the chicken?

Greg: Yeah. The biggest seller is the Santa Fe chicken sandwich, and that’s like the gateway drug, so to speak [crosstalk]. Veggie Grill is, you walk in and it’s funny, because people will be in active centers, like near a Whole Foods or something like that. People will [inaudible] stumble in, [inaudible] menu and go. You can tell they don’t know if they were going to stay or not. We try to intercept them and we say, “Now, I know this kind of looks like, maybe it’s complicated. Let’s make it easy for you. Just have a Santa Fe crispy chicken sandwich and have the sweetheart fries, which are made out of sweet potato. [crosstalk] If you don’t like it, it’s on us.” Everybody takes that one. No one doesn’t take us [inaudible] that offer, free lunch, if they don’t like it. We buy so few free lunches, because people taste it.

I work at [inaudible]. I love working in the restaurants during busy lunches and talking to the customers. I’ve had more people, you wouldn’t believe, tell me and go, “Okay. I thought you guys were a vegan restaurant. This chicken, where did you get this chicken from? Why is this vegan, and you guys tell [inaudible]. “It really is not chicken. It really is made from vegetable proteins, and in a very special way, it’s marinated with our “special recipe, secret recipe”, and then we batter it with a certain kind of batter, using coconut milk ant the like, and it just works. It just tastes good.”

John: Well, you know, it’s amazing. How many times have we heard, “Go ahead. Try it. It tastes like chicken.” Well, in this case, it really does.

Mike: You know, Greg, you’re right now in West Hollywood, LA’s Farmer Market, Santa Monica, El Segundo, Rolling Hills, Irvine, you’ve got a couple locations, you’re a guy with a big vision. You’re a serial entrepreneur with massive success in your rear-view mirror, but with big dreams again. Where can you take this now?

Greg: Well, we’re going to keep building our base in Los Angeles, but clearly, there’s a lot of this kind of eating up and down the West Coast, all the way from, Delmar to Seattle. People are eating more healthfully, and I want to make this, and this is going to sound really cocky, I want to be careful, but I think we can be the West Coast phenomenon for this kind of food. Again, it’s very approachable. It’s burgers and fries, sandwiches and salads that you recognize. When you see them, you taste them, you’ll love the flavors, but you’ll recognize it. It’s not weird. I think it’s going to catch on pretty well with the West Coast, because that’s going to be our focus right now, to stay in this time zone and probably Scottsdale, and then that market.

I think the next market is really would be the Northeast because there is a lot of demand. We get a lot of requests, “When are you going to open in this city? When you coming to-,” and we’re 6 little restaurants on the West Coast, we do get, “When are you coming to DC? When are you coming to New York?

Mike: Boston, New York, I’m sure.

Greg: My two favorite markets on the East Coast are Manhattan and Washington DC. [crosstalk] People are educated, they’re hip, they’re forward thinking, they’re on the move, and that’s our kind of customer.

Mike: You know, Greg, we have a picture of you here in the studio, and our listeners can see it up on our website, greenisgood.fm. You look like a healthy guy. We love CEOs that just not only talk a great talk, and obviously, you’re extraordinarily articulate, but walk a great walk. Talk a little bit about the evolution of your own diet. Are you now a vegan?

Greg: Yeah. I’m a 99.9% vegan. It was funny, it started as a challenge. When I started talking to Kevin and TK Pillan, they said, “Well, have you ever tried to eat vegan?” I said, “No, I eat healthfully. I eat a lot of fish. I don’t eat a lot of heavy, fat-weighted foods, but no, I’m not a vegan. My daughter’s a vegan, but I’ve never done it.” They said, “Well, have you ever thought of just trying it?” I said, “Okay.” It sort of threw the gauntlet down. “I give it 6 weeks,” so I ate 100% totally vegan for 6 weeks. I went down to the South Pacific for a surfing week and came back, and I’ve lost some weight. I still have my energy. It was funny because I expected to miss the protein. However, I used to start to do more research into this. I start realizing, there’s plenty of protein in plant-based eating, but what’s more important is, there’s plenty of nutrients. It’s a much more nutrient-rich way of eating. 100 calories of a kale salad is a lot different than 100 calories of bacon, even though they’re the same, still 100 calories. [crosstalk]

I started to get into it, and then it started become a game. “How can I eat vegan? Where can I go?” I’m in an airport in Atlanta. “What am I going to eat in Atlanta that’s vegan? Where am I going to go? How can I figure this out, besides just having french-fries, because they’re vegan?” It started to become like it more of a games, than more of a way of eating. Our food guy, Ray White, who is really a food Shaman, as far as I’m concerned, [inaudible] 16, 17 years and just plant-based, he said something to me that really caught my attention. It was like, “The more you eat this way, the more you want to eat this way. Your body actually starts to crave it,” and I’ll be damned, he’s right. It starts to happen that way.

I’m not going to say everybody has to. Most people I know want to eat in this healthful way once in a while, but mainly, people want enjoyment. Food is one of the last things in where you can really just sit down and have it your way, [crosstalk] eat it, and satisfy, and enjoy yourself, enjoy it with friends. We don’t prophesize. We don’t say, “The choices aren’t as good. [inaudible] is this choice.” We just say, “This is a choice, and for me has been a choice that through Veggie Grill, I’ve been exposed to a lot more ways to eat plant-based, and I’m not missing anything.”

John: That’s awesome. It looks like one of your tag lines here on your website is “the perfect indulgence”. Speaking of indulgence, I have a big sweet tooth. I see here, carrot cake, chocolate pudding, chocolate chip cookies. How good are these desserts? How do you make them without eggs and butter?

Greg: Yeah. That’s where Ray White comes in, the food magician. By way of a story, my girlfriend’s party, I had a birthday party for her in the last[?] summer, and I brought Veggie Grill’s carrot cake in. They can make it either in flat, small pieces that they use in a day-to-day basis, or they can make these great, big cakes that you can use for a catered event or something like that. I got a couple of these great big cakes. There was about 50, 60 people there. We started cutting up this cake, handed it around, and I didn’t tell anybody it was plant-based. Everybody loved it, “This is so good. Where did you get this?” I start telling them, “Yeah, you know what? This is vegan carrot cake,” and people look at you, like, “Right. No way.”

The way the company does it, it’s a way of using tofu for the carrot cake, tofu and natural vegetable oils, and evaporated cane juice instead of sugar. We use agave syrup instead of honey, because honey isn’t vegan. Ray found ways to blend these ingredients, in a way, in tofu. It’s amazing, the amount of products that are coming out now, that are plant-based, that are so close to the real thing, like Tofutti cream cheese, and things like that.

We’re able to, now, have those ingredients at our disposal, that 10, 15 years ago, they weren’t even around. [crosstalk] We stay in touch with the manufacturers and we’re working always with a couple manufacturers to find ways to improve it, but that’s how you do it. It’s natural vegetable oils, tofus. What you can do with soybeans now is just, frankly, amazing. All of our soybeans don’t have any GMO and that kind of thing.

Mike: You know, Greg, we’re down to the last minute and a half or so, and I just want to ask one last question. Talk about how Veggie Grill is good for the planet, besides good for our tummies.

Greg: Well, you know, a couple ways. One is, our business, we use all biodegradable plastic bags, and all of our take-out materials come from recycled materials or recyclable. The floors of the restaurants are made out of sustainable bamboo. When we serve our wine, we don’t use bottles. We have these tanks that get refilled, so we don’t have to add to the landfill with a bunch of bottles. A couple of our restaurants, we have people that come by and pick up our rice bran oil that we use for frying the fries and the like. They use it in their car. We try to do stuff like that. That’s more like a local kind of, [inaudible] level. [crosstalk]

On a bigger level, eating plant-based is much more sustainable than livestock. You know what’s going on in Brazil with the rainforest. Clearing the rainforest degrades[?] cattle. There is massive amounts of petrol chemicals being used to raise livestock, methane gases are dramatically higher from livestock. In the long run, in this planet, it’s not a sustainable way to live. We’re going to spend way too much economic inputs to make and grow that kind of food versus growing sustainable plant-based food. It’s like 10 times more efficient on the land to grow the same amount of protein for plant-based and livestock. We’re not busting anybody’s choices. I’ll tell you, in the old days, big old steak and a bottle of Cabernet, yum. However, when we have 7, 8, 9 billion people on the planet, we’re going to have to be more creative.

Mike: Well, perfect. Greg, we’re going to have you back on because we know that you’re going to grow this amazing brand, Veggie Grill, like you’ve grown all the other brands you’ve touched before. For all our listeners out there, go to Greg’s website, veggiegrill.com. Find out where there’s a location near you, right now in Southern California, but soon in a city coming to you, soon, when Greg brings them there. Good foods, fast. Veggie Grill, veggiegrill.com.

Greg Dollarhyde, you’re a hospitality and restaurant tour rock star, but now, you’re also a visionary eco-preneur and truly, living proof that green is good.

Greg: Thanks, guys.

John: This program will be available for downloading in a couple of days from our station’s website. Keyword, podcast. Thanks for listening, and join us again next week, at the same time, for another edition of Green is Good.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform, revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs and business leaders, engage is the go-to spot for booking talent for speeches, custom experiences, livestreams, and much more. For more information on engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy. And it’s the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian and I’m so honored to have with us, I believe, our first brother-sister team ever. It’s the Boymans. It’s Jody Boyman and Todd Boyman, the founders of Hungry Planet Foods. Welcome to the Impact Podcast.

Todd Boyman: John, it’s nice to be with you. Thank you.

John: Well, this is really going to be a great and exciting broadcast. I love your food. As my listeners already know, I’m a vegan and a vegetarian, been so for years. These are your products that I ate last night. I’ve eaten them before last night, but these are some specific ones I just had last night. They are delicious, and we’re going to be talking about them. But before we get talking about how you started Hungry Planet Foods and what you’re doing there, share a little bit of each of your backgrounds. Jody, you go first.

Jody Boyman: We grew up in St. Louis, Missouri in the ’60s and the ’70s. Speaking for myself, I was always an animal lover and always being into environmental concerns and all of that. It became clear to me from a very young age that the food that we eat has served unintended consequences for our health, and the environment, and the animals. I’ve always believed that our daily food choices are sort of a vote for the world we want to inhabit and future generations will inherit.

I announced to my parents that I was going to be plant-based from a very young age. I think I was eleven or twelve then. That caused great consternation. Eventually, both my siblings followed along with that, my brother and our younger sister. It’s just been this journey for me as I know it has been for many, many, many years. But how exciting that it’s reaching this critical mass now and that we have all these delicious and nutritious foods to eat, particularly all these meats that people can just swap in and have with their regular recipes. That’s my background. It all started in St. Louis, Missouri, which is where our company is founded and most of our team is there. But it’s quite the journey. It’s really fun.

John: Jody, the options that we had 40 something years ago. I grew up in New York City. The options we had in New York City and Missouri were so limited, right? It’s crazy.

Jody: It was terrible. You’d do sorting off from [inaudible] or you’d have mixed it with water and then [inaudible]. The taste is terrible. Only long-haired hippie freaks went to the health food store back then. Now, you got Erewhon and all that out here, and people are actively seeking these alternatives. The times have changed for sure.

John: Todd, how about you? Share a little bit about your journey leading up to where you are today.

Todd: Yes, [inaudible]. Maybe an inside story here on Jody that just have fell out her back story a little bit. It really leads to ultimately why I also chose to eat and live these ways. Jody and our younger sister, Kim, when my mom would bring out our beautiful dinners, they would look at it and say, “Hey, Mom, where did this use to be?” That was when they were in grade schools. So we [inaudible] to really interrogate what was on the plate. You get these heavy downpours in the Midwest and the earthworms start crawling out on the pavement, and Jody and Kim were out there moving them all back onto the dirt. Both of them had a deep, deep connection to all living things and ultimately really connecting the dots in terms of how our few choices directly impact our human health, planetary health, and the well-being of animals. I don’t think you can help but to grow up in a family like that and be impacted.

They both have been plant-based for 4 decades. It took me about a decade longer than them to let it sink in. I’m a slow learner in this family so it’s been a little over thirty-five years, but I eventually got it because even thirty-five years ago, the data was compelling. Well, today it’s absolutely overwhelming. Anyone who wants to understand why you might choose to eat differently, the data is all there. That’s really, for me, where it started as well with an older and younger sister who patiently brought me along on that journey until I wised up and said, “Yeah, this kind of makes sense for a whole infinite number of ideas.”

John: When people ask me, “Why plant-based?” I say, “Listen, this is not my opinion, it’s just the science, so you either can follow the science. You don’t have to follow science, but it’s just what it is.” [crosstalk].

Todd: It is. Like when people will say, “Why do you believe that?” It’s like well, actually, it’s not a belief, it’s an understanding, [crosstalk] right?

John: Right.

Todd: It’s an understanding of the science. A lot of people take a front at that, but the science is overwhelming. When people do it for selfish reasons or planetary reasons or as they understand what’s going on with and the latter culture, anyone of those reasons is pretty compelling. At the end of the day, it really is about delicious food, John. You made that point about how difficult it was in those early days to eat plant-based.

The data in the United States shows that any one time and this has been true for decades, now maybe 5% of the population was to eat vegan or vegetarian, but there’s an 80% turn over a 3-year time period, meaning that over 3 years, 80% of those people washed out because historically, it is so difficult to get really delicious food and easy on way up. That’s one of the problems that we’re solving with Hungry Planet.

John: When did you come together as entrepreneurs besides siblings and say, “Aha! There is a huge void in the marketplace. Let’s come together and put a company together to fill that void?”

Todd: Well, it was probably twenty-five years ago. Some of the first veggie burgers were coming on the market and Johnny Byrum[?] was out as well. It was like you could finally go out to eat with your friends and you’re like, “Okay, well, I’ll take that because finally, it’s not just steamed vegetables.”, right?

John: Right.

Todd: So that was a eureka moment, I think, for all of us. Then it was probably close to twenty years ago where Jody and I, and some like-minded friends really started to realize that we could spend a lot of time, effort, money trying to educate people as to why they might want to eat differently, but that really doesn’t work.

That’s when the light started to dawn [inaudible]. “Let’s figure out how to get people what they love to eat,” and so that was in the early 2000s. Before anyone was talking about this, people love to eat meat. There’s nothing wrong with loving the taste and the texture of that. So let’s figure out whether we can replicate that. That started in the early 2000s. It was just a very patient investment with patient capital, not outside money. There was no market for it, but there also were outside investors saying, “We’re happy to get something to market.” That’s really where it started.

It also started by looking at from a global perspective. Jody and I have grown up internationally. I’ve always done business in the tech world that I was in before doing business globally. When you look at the conventional meat industry globally, it’s about 2 trillion dollar market, and the most predominant meat is pork and then chicken and then beef and then lamb and others. So we just thought it through and said, let’s figure this out. Can we come up with basically a platform, come with software in terms of the design thinking and let’s see if we can replicate all these meats, the taste, and the texture. Let’s also make sure that we build into it a superior nutritional profile and then let’s also make sure that it handles stores purposely cooks like conventional meat.

That was kind of the vision that we started off with and close to twenty years ago with some like-minded individuals and patiently worked on it. Really, it’s just a passion project. Then over the past 8 years or so, it was clear that the food was fantastic, and let’s start figuring out when is the market ready for this, and let’s scale off the business. It’s been a long journey with us and other members of our team.

John: For our listeners and viewers out there that want to find Todd and Jody and their great products and find out where they can also buy them, please go to www.hungryplanetfoods.com. Jody, talk a little bit about where you are right now because as I’ve shared… I want to show this. I’ve had a lot of plant-based food. I chase it down, whatever city I’m in. Last week, I was in New York, Minneapolis, Detroit, and back to L.A. I’m constantly looking for more options, more alternatives, see what the latest and greatest is.

Thai meatballs never had plant-ba-, these were absolutely delicious. Italian sausage meatballs, I’ve had vegan Italian sausage, never Italian sausage meatballs. These tremendous. Since I’m not a big crab person to start with, never was, I had two of these last night. Amazing. Just delicious. Plus your chicken patties I had, the fried chicken patties also. I don’t know what I did with that. Somehow, I brought it with me and I lost it en route in my car or something. Your products, all of them are just outstanding, delicious, easily digested.

Really, honestly, my final tell on anything I eat, given that I’m fifty-eight now, is how I sleep that night. If the food disrupts my sleep at all, then I know, wait a second, it tasted great and I’ll tell you, I slept like a baby. So your food is not only clean and delicious but it’s just absolutely on point. Twenty years, it doesn’t matter how long your journey is. When you get it right, the magic is happening. Where are you now and where do you both want to go in this wonderful journey and evolution?

Jody: Well, as Todd said, we’ve been really patient, right? We have a super big vision that this be a global company because people need variety everywhere in the world. People say, “What’s your hero product?” and I don’t even like the word “product.” I like to say “meat.” It is meat from plants. What’s your hero product? It’s not beef and burger because a lot of people are doing that. That’s great, but as a lifetime vegan pretty much, I’m kind of tired of beef and burgers. I want everything else so that I can eat pork, crab, chicken, and all these different foreign factors.

We were launching into food service right about the time that COVID hit. As food service sort of fell off a cliff. We quickly regrouped. We’re very nimble company, and we said, “Okay, people are still hungry. They’re just hungry at home, so let’s get this food to them at home.” We moved forward our plans by about twenty-four months so that we can include now of seventeen retail items, including 3 ready to heat full meals, which you haven’t seen yet. Salisbury steak and chicken piccata, and it comes with mashed potatoes and green beans. You just heat it up and you have a complete meal that is low in fat, low in sodium, high in fiber, really high in protein, doesn’t involve any animals at all.

You asked where are we going, now, we’re back in the food service because everything is starting to settle down a little bit with COVID. Our foodservice channel is firing like crazy. We’re on shelf at all three hundred and sixty-two sprouts grocery stores as of this week. [inaudible] products there or in lots of Albertsons or Lazy Acres. If you go on our website, we have a “find us” page and it tells you all the restaurants and all the places where you can get our great foods. We’re also available through e-con. We’re on Amazon. We’re on costco.com. We’re available for order on our own website.

If you don’t want to order a huge amount of food to start, that’s a good point. It’s the kind of taste a few options. Our strength is our diversity and it’s also our nutritional profile. We have about half the calories, a fraction of the fat, no saturated fat compared to others in this category, and certainly compared to conventional meats.

John: Got it. Wow. Todd, I know both of you have international experience living abroad, just a global citizen mindset. This is going to be a global company, right? Because the world is ready for plant-based products, the kind of products that you have.

Todd: Yes, John, no question about it. The transformation that is going on right now is global and it’s happening rapidly. We’ve actually been selling our products in Australia for about 3 years as part of a soft launch. We’ve been doing products in Singapore for about a year. We have boots on the ground in the Middle East that we’ll be launching there soon. As you indicated, we really did start with the global vision of what’s the opportunity and what’s the problem. You can’t address climate change. You can’t address food scarcity. You can’t address all these issues if you’re just thinking domestically.

You really have to be thinking globally and define that opportunity, that problem globally and then go after it. That is absolutely what we’re doing, and it really stretched us from the very first day to define this opportunity in a different way. There’s this thought that how you define a problem is really going to dictate where you end up. If you’re defining the problem as beef and burgers, that’s going to take you down one halfway. If you define it as every type of animal protein because they all impact human health, planetary health, and animal well-being and you look at it through a culinary lens, that’s going to lead you to a very different solution.

Your comment about discovering our foods for the first time and then it was like, “Oh, wait a second, no one else is doing this.” It’s because really, no one else set off with a vision that we set off with. By doing that, we’ve been shaft crafted from Day 1 because the food doesn’t taste great, right, John? You would’ve been like, “Okay, you know what, this food isn’t interesting.” If it doesn’t digest well, not a good thing. When you’re shaft crafted, you set the bar at a different level. Then when you think about globally, you’re thinking about not just the meat proteins that cultures around the world consume but you’re also thinking about how they prepare it. Is it a kebab? Is it a roast? How is it being prepared? If your meat can’t translate in all those cuisines, you’re pigeonholed into 1 or 2 parts of that solution and not the all-encompassing solution that’s required.

Our team is led by an amazing culinarian, Chef Ron. [inaudible] is a certified master chef. There are only sixty-two out there. That’s the highest designation you can have. Every day, he’s monitored to the whole team if the food’s stupid. It’s got to taste great.

While we have a lot of interesting science that undergirds what we do, it’s the food is stupid. And if the food isn’t great, it doesn’t get released. We’ve had the benefit of honestly working on this longer than anyone else on the planet so we have an iteration after iteration after iteration that when it was time to launch it, we don’t then later say, “Oops, sorry.” We can’t apologize for that. Let’s give you a different version. The first version should be spectacular. I think based on your experience, you’re seeing that we got it right across all these protein types.

John: The taste was incredible. I was blown away. Like I said, I’m not a big crab person. I couldn’t even tell the difference between your crab cake and what is known as a traditional crab cake made out of regular crab. It was that good. Just fantastic on every level. All your products were just incredible. Now, the chef is in St. Louis, Missouri with you?

Todd: Because we are a fairly large culinary team at this point, our chief culinary officer, Ron, is in New York but heads back and forth regularly so he can work with the culinary community in New York. He’s on the West Coast regularly and he’s in [inaudible]. One of his homes, quite frankly, is an airplane. He’s [inaudible]. He’s all over the place.

John: I know how that works.

Todd: Your point about the crab is interesting. We had an opportunity to serve a range of our meats to one of the largest meat companies on the planet. About 3 years ago, that was [inaudible] before we take the covers off of everything that we were doing. It was an opportunity to present our foods without it being revealed in advance that they were all [inaudible] meats. It’s an annual banquet of a hundred of the top executives and there’s significant others, and our food was being served as the appetizer without it being revealed that it was plant-based. When they all sat down, they have their main meal and they’re being walked through what the main meal was going to be.

The chef said, “Well, how did you all like the appetizers?” A round of applause. The best we’ve ever had in all the years of this banquet. Then he said, “Well, just so you know, those were all plant-based.” Dead silence, two hundred pairs of eyes looking up and then a round of applause of well-played. When you can do that and have people who really know meat not knowing that they aren’t eating conventional meat but they’re eating meat made directly from plants without the animal intermediary, you feel like, “Okay, we’re probably ready to now launch this for everybody to enjoy.”

John: It’s so funny, guys. People want to look good. Looking good is part of the vanity Instagram world that we live in and things of that such and they’re buying all sorts of stuff to put on their body. The truth is… I’m not giving away any secrets, but I know we spoke, had a lovely discussion prior to filming this and I know your ages. Both of you look at least ten years younger than you are. If people understood that if they put just cleaner products into their body when they eat, they don’t have to put all this extra stuff on the exterior to look good.

Both of you look unbelievably amazing, not only healthy, but extraordinarily young, and I think that’s part of the messaging here, also part of the messaging, I always find this… Somehow, Jody, you could go into this, but you’re both evangelists for plant-based eating. Somehow, people along the way who are vegan or plant-based feel that it’s an ideological movement, and it’s all or nothing but that’s so untrue. And you guys have created products that can be enjoyed and people can eat whatever they want during the day, come home and have an amazing vegan meal or a plant-based meal or a plant-based lunch and still do whatever they want during the rest of the day. It’s just, it never missed anything from a taste perspective.

Jody: Oh, that’s it. We realized early on that we were not… if we were really trying to move the needle and our mission to bend the curve on personal and planetary health, it’s not about the vegans and the vegetarians out there. I love them, they’re my peeps but I want my food to be consumed by the 99% of other people on the planet who are starting to wake up about what’s going on, like environmentally and all that and they’re looking for options. And they don’t want to be asked to eat wildly different foods. They don’t want to have lentil burgers, they want a beef burger or a lamb burger. We have phenomenal lamb that you smell wafting down the hall, it’s too realistic for me, but people who love lamb say it’s indistinguishable.

They want to eat foods that are familiar to them but are better for them and their families and the earth, we are passing on this earth to our children. All of us on this call, each have two children, we are passing this earth along to them. And we are not living sustainably. How is it that we somehow manage to feed almost 8 trillion animals every year or billion animals every year, but we can’t feed 8 billion human beings. That’s a travesty. We’re doing something wrong there, right? And there’s all of these billions and billions of animals that are caught up in this food system and we just want to disintermediate that. We want to just say, we make meat directly from plants but you can’t taste the difference and it’s better for you and the plant and the animals, why wouldn’t you? Once a day, once a week, once a month, just lean into it and try it. Open your mind. And we find people come back over and over again and are so thankful. They were like, “I know I should be doing this and you make it easy for me.”

And that’s what fuels me every day. I want to be the easy go-to, delicious, nutritious solution. And in families where, by the way, and you probably see this, kids are coming home from college during COVID and they’re like, “Mom! Dad! I’m vegan”, and they’re like, “Oh my God! How am I going to feed you?”. Well, it’s easy, right? You just make lasagna with Hungry Planet and everybody around the table can eat it and feels satisfied, and there’s no questions asked. If you don’t say anything, nobody even knows, right?

John: [inaudible] For our listeners and viewers who’ve just joined us, we’ve got Jody Boyman and Todd Boyman with us. A brother-sister entrepreneurial powerhouse team and the founders of Hungry Planet Foods. You could find them and their great products at www.hungryplanetfoods.com. Todd, talk a little bit about you and your sister have been doing this partnership, entrepreneurship thing now for almost 20 years as you’ve said, but diversity and inclusivity is becoming a bigger deal now just in 24,36 months it’s become a major social issue. I’m partners with my wife, who’s right over there, and we’ve been together almost 40 years so I understand the value of diversity. How does it make you a better entrepreneurial team and a better company, given the diversity of views that you have as not like brother and sister, but male, female and other points of view that you bring that are both aligned but also diverse of the same time?

Todd: Yes, we got some really interesting thing to think through. When you look at the food systems and you look at the cultural food, and you see how diverse our food desires are around the world, if you want any chance of figuring out how to provide those foods, you’ve got to design and architect an organization or company that reflects the rest of the world. Right? You can’t just have people just like you. And so to that end, we’ve got virtually no litmus test for joining our company. We actually don’t go looking for people who are plant-based. That’s another form of the litmus test and people might think, “well, does everyone who worked there be plant-based?” By intention, not, particularly among our culinary team, because what we want to do is we want to have our first principles question on an everyday basis.

Because when we do that, when we look at the science, and we look at the arguments for and against any decisions we might be making, it makes us make better decisions to understand what are the primary, secondary, tertiary impacts of that decision and making sure that they will scale and that they will meet needs globally. So if you’re looking to develop food that works, not just for this amazingly diverse community that we have here in United States, but then is tailored specifically for the Middle East, or a very diverse community like Singapore, or in China or in Japan or Korea, or Europe. You need to have that. So I think the issue of diversity was baked into what we did from day one.

Understanding that without that there’s no way we could be successful and there’s no way that we could achieve the objective and meet our mission, which as Jody said, is to bend the curve on personal and planetary health. The only way you can do that is to get all the voices in there with an equal seat at the table, have those good healthy discussions, and then make decisions and move forward.

John: You know, Jody, reverse logistics is always an issue for any industry. And since you already have so many of these recipes down and the taste profiles down unbelievably, are you able to contract manufacturer, your products where you want to be in terms of knowledge, domestically, in terms of a reverse logistics distribution basis? But also, as Todd was just talking about Middle East, Singapore, China, India, all either already in motion. Already happening. Are you able to then contract manufacturer in different parts of the world as well?

Jody: That’s a very good question. And it’s an ongoing process, right especially in the world of COVID. But we have a really nice broad, diverse network of places where we produce our food, different geographies, and all of that. So we’ve got redundancies, and we do everything, from raw to raw formed to pre-cooked to ready-to-eat. Unlike other companies that are doing one of those things, we’re doing all four. We’re playing three-dimensional chess, and we’re doing it in food service, and retail, and e-com, and now globally, right? So we do have phenomenal partners and we feel very optimistic that all the pieces will come together as they need as we expand in these other markets. And I don’t think that will be a hurdle. We’re getting some really great traction and some wonderful geographies where we want to make a difference.

John: Todd to democratize your products which deserve to be democratized. Again, for our listeners out there, hungryplanetfoods.com, you can find all 17 of their products, and where they’re being sold right now. Takes capital, how are you both approaching the word “capital” to go democratize your products, both nationally, and also, obviously, internationally?

Todd: Yes John, we’ve had the benefit of working on this for so long, and being self-funded that we could afford to be patient to get it right. And to derisk the model that we ultimately took to market. When you take a look at this space, most people understand that there’s a huge amount of risk just in the early R&D stage of just trying to figure out one plant-based protein, let alone 9 different types. We had the opportunity to do all that on our own dime with a collection of insiders who weren’t interested in that, you’ll say let’s rush something out.

So by doing that first before we went out to talk to the capital markets, gave us a huge advantage to be very selective in who we partnered with, how much we brought in, and when we brought it in. So our capital needs haven’t been kind of in the same ballpark as others because we’ve done all the R&D. And our capital needs were really about scaling what was already proven. And so we’ve been able to bring in some phenomenal partners, which we brought in at the beginning of this year, we did a raise that we brought in 25 million. We had people wanting to write checks much larger, but we really didn’t know how we would use that wisely and too much money actually can lead you to make really poor decisions.

So we brought in the amount that we wanted to bring in and rapidly been further building out that team, expanding the geographic reach, and further building out a lot of our social media assets to get the words out there in addition to our website of hungryplanetfoods.com where when people go there, we have all types of recipes. We’ve got videos of how to use the food, our chefs are making it very easy for people on board, whether they’re in the food service area or consumers. But then we also have channels on Instagram, on YouTube, on Pinterest, on Facebook, all @hungryplanetfoods, where consumers can really discover what we’re doing. And so we’ve found that we’ve been able to do this in a way that is smart. We believe that the timing is right, that we’ve made the right decisions at the right time. And we’ve surrounded ourselves with people who have been absolutely aligned with the mission from day one, and have let us go at the pace that we thought was the right pace to introduce these foods.

John: You talk about building a team. You guys are a great team. Obviously, you’ve already had so much of this down. Jody, I know you probably do a little bit of everything every day, but how do you, generally speaking, divide and conquer to go? Because this is a big idea. This isn’t just a nice little business, domestic business, even regional business, this is truly going to be a big international company. What’s the division of labor typically?

Jody: Well, it wasn’t that long ago that we did almost everything. And we wore all the hats in the company, right? That’s just the nature of a startup, we were working hundred-hour weeks. As things got rolling, and as we saw that the time was coming. And we were perfecting and ready to launch. We were working, we still are but crazy hours, right? But the key is to surround yourself with people who are really good at what they do and just invite them into this very dynamic community that we’re developing. We’ve grown quickly, and we just have the best team and everybody communicates well. We’re on Slack channels all day long. We got emails, and Google drives, and everything. But we’ve let the people who are really good at what they do, do what they do in terms of the operations. But I personally am plugged in every day, to sales, marketing, and design.

Those three areas, I have my fingers all over all of that, I was the original salesperson at this company. And I’ve never sold anything in my life before I started selling Hungry Planet meat. I had other careers as a wildlife photographer and a clinical psychologist, and I was like, “Oh, but I could sell meat, sure I can sell meat”. So off I went, Todd has more of a sales background. So that’s where it is. And Todd, as the CEO, oversees everything. And the commercial side is really important for him to do, but also the operations side. Because we’re playing three-dimensional chess, has its challenges, but it’s so exciting because we’re able to fire on all of these cylinders.

John: How big are you now like in terms of not… I don’t want revenues or anything like that, but how many people are full-time employees now?

Todd: So we’ve built a team of about 40 people right now. It’s flexing up every single day, to build just a phenomenal team here in St. Louis, where we’re headquartered. But we have individuals, again, around the world who are a part of the team as we start preparing various markets for launch. And I think what everyone feels energized about as they come in, and they really deeply understand the mission of the business. And they understand how what we’re doing is making a very tangible impact, that energy just drives that team. And it’s all pointed out to me recently that with a team of, call it 40 people, we have more people focused on kind of this ESG category of making a change to environmental, social governance than some of the largest your multibillion-dollar food companies on the planet who might have one person who’s assigned to that, to figure it out.

Here we have virtually every member of our team focused on the exact center of how do you make the world a better place by building a sustainable business to make a difference. And so when they said that it has to bring a smile to your face and you’re thinking, “Wow! You’re punching above your weight.” When you look at it through that lens and say, “Yeah, 40 people at a massive multi-billion dollar food company doesn’t seem like that many.” But everybody is absolutely focused on this mission and are making a difference. That’s really, really satisfying.

John: So interesting. By the way, I agree with you tremendously and not there’s no greater trend and ESG. That’s not only here, but it’s here to stay. And that I think is going to be tremendously beneficial. One of the other anecdotal trends that I’m seeing, I want to know, have you both seen this? And obviously, if you have, do you believe that your brand is going to be a big beneficiary? I have friends that are doctors, and they’re not only MDs, but they’re holistic doctors as well. And I go to them, I’ve been going to them for many, many years. And they both tell me the same thing. One of them is in his 40s, the other one is in his 70s. And they both tell me that their business, as we come out of COVID, has nearly doubled, because people’s interest in health and wellness now, and proactive instead of reactive medicine, and proactive behavior is greater than ever before. And if that anecdotal information is true, that has to be a tremendous windfall to your mission.

Jody: We have always felt that food is medicine and our younger sister is a medical doctor and has been for about 35 years. And she uses her plant-based learnings every day with her patients. And like you, I have many, many friends who are doctors and who are, holistic medicine and all of that. And, I think that is one of the silver linings of COVID, right? People did say, “Okay, what can I do proactively for myself, to eat cleaner, to eat better, so that I can protect myself against, this virus?” And Hungry Planet’s a great option for that.

John: Right. This is your show, this is all about both of you. Any last thoughts or words before we say goodbye for today, but it’s not going to be the last time we talk, because I’m going to have you back on to continue to share your great journey. Any final thoughts that either one of you would like to share with our audience today?

Todd: First of all, thank you for having us on the show. Wonderful to meet you. And we were delighted to be able to share with people our ancient[?] learning about this category. And Hungry Planet, our focus truly is to provide simply, authentically delicious meats made directly from plants that span every meat protein type are available in every cuisine that you can imagine. That you can buy these products as grounds, and you can make them as a substitution in any of your existing favorite recipes. Or you can get the pre-cooked items. And you can know that with Hungry Planet, we are always going to consistently deliver authentically delicious food that is demonstrably better for you. We don’t believe it’s appropriate to have the halo of being plant-based without delivering on the promise of what plant-base should mean, which is better for you, as you were talking about here, the health elements of it.

And so our commitment as a brand is to make sure that the food is delicious and will work in any cuisine that is demonstrably better for you. And that we are absolutely focused on making a difference wherever possible. So to any listeners out there who are working to make a difference, we would love to connect with you whether it’s through our website at hungryplanetfoods.com or on any of the social media channels which are also hungry planet foods. We would love to enter into that discussion. Share our foods with you, and just expand that conversation to help drive positive change. So again, thank you for letting us be here with you. It’s a pleasure, love what you’re doing to help share important ideas with people who are wired to learn more. So thank you.

John: Thank you both. Again, hungryplanetfoods.com, I’ve eaten their products, they’re delicious. Go to their website, find out where near where you’d live, where you could buy their great foods, change your mind, change the planet. Thank you both for making the world a better place, a more sustainable place. And that’s why you both were invited on the impact podcast today. I’m going to have you back on because I can’t wait to see your great products democratized across the planet. Todd and Jody, [crosstalk] thank you so much.

Jody: It was great to meet with you. Thank you so much.

Todd: Bye-bye.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by The Marketing Masters. The Marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit themarketingmasters.com.

John Shegerian: Welcome back to Green is Good, and we’re so happy today to have Rob Michalak on. Rob is Global Director of Social Mission at Ben & Jerry’s. Welcome to Green is Good, Rob.

Rob Michalak: Thank you. Great to be here.

John: You know, Rob, we’re so excited to have you on. As a company that’s done so much good for so many years but also feeds our hungry tummies with your delicious products and you do so much social good, it’s truly an honor to have you and your great brand on Green is Good today.

Rob: Well, thanks and you know, it’s all the journey and sometimes there’s a bump in the road but sometimes, you got some good roads ahead that are clear and hopefully we can get to a good place.

John: Rob, you have such an interesting bio. You were there at the beginning in the heyday of Ben & Jerry’s. You took a little break. You came back now and you’re doing the social mission stuff. Can you give, in your own words, the whole evolution of your career at Ben & Jerry’s and where you are today?

Rob: You know, I actually go way back. It was a cosmic connection. I arrived in Vermont in 1977 as a young man, kind of a freelancer and back then I didn’t have the greatest cars because, as a freelancer, I wasn’t making a lot of money and so my car broke down one day and I’m hitchhiking and actually, this Volvo pulled over and I kind of looked in and was like, that guy looks okay so I got a ride from this guy and he’s talking to me and he says, “What do you do?” and I said, “I’m a freelancer. What do you do?” and he says, “Well, my buddy and I just bought a gas station in Burlington. We’re going to make food, not sure exactly what,” and it turned out to be Jerry and he and his buddy, Ben, had started this gas station and in the early days, they did a little bit of food and a lot of bit of ice cream and then eventually, the ice cream took over and as they became successful, they wanted to make sure that the success of their business would be shared in terms of that prosperity.

I came on board. I had worked locally in the news media back then and came on board early, as the PR was growing regionally and nationally and the great thing at that time was we had just written the three part mission statement in 1988 and it included a social mission alongside the product and brand mission and nobody was writing this stuff in 1988 like this and at the top of the mission, we talked about having a sustainable corporate vision of length prosperity. We’ll see people from Harvard and thinkologists and academics and visionaries now, they’re talking about shared equity, shared prosperity but back in 1988, Ben and Jerry and the leadership at that time knew that we wanted to have a length prosperity because the concept they had was really a capitalistic concept but it’s this more thoughtful caring form of capitalism that says if everybody is sharing in the prosperity, then we’re all participating in the global economy and if you look at what happened back in 2008 and 2009 when the global economy tanked, it was because of greed.

People were just trying to make money on money and they weren’t creating any value that was the underpinning of the economy and so the global economy went over the edge and what Ben and Jerry are saying is if we have an economy that includes people, that links the prosperity so that all stakeholders are sharing in this, then we’ll all be able to participate and that’s a much more sustainable healthy way to do this. I was doing public relations early on and I left the company to do some things that I had an opportunity to do. Right around the time that Unilever bought Ben & Jerry’s was when I came back in 2006 and ever since then, I’ve been the Global Director of Social Mission and the good news is that that partnership with Unilever has worked out to the best aspirations that would look like. Unilever wanted to have a progressive business in their portfolio and wanted to support Ben & Jerry’s to be Ben & Jerry’s.

There was a period of time when we were trying to figure that out early on but now, we are doing so many things. We are doing more things in terms of the social mission now than we really ever have in the company’s history. Ben and Jerry had the vision, the leadership at that time, set the direction. We had the mission statement, which is still alive and vigorous but now we’re able to actually choose all the resources that we have with the partnership with Unilever and also be Ben & Jerry’s still, managed from Vermont for the whole world, and we’re able to do a lot of stuff.

John: And, so now, we understand how it originated. Explain now how it’s being applied practically in the 2013 environment where the world has sort of caught up with you, Rob. This is the fascinating part. When the great owners of Whole Foods wrote a book called Conscious Capitalism, you guys were practicing that back when, like you said. Before it was cool to do it, before it was right to do it, before the tipping point had come, but now that it’s here and the world’s caught up to you, how are you guys now practically applying your social mission in new ways?

Rob: It’s great that a lot of companies are doing this and actually, there’s movement above and beyond any individual companies, like Whole Foods or Ben & Jerry’s. We’ve got the Benefit Corporation Movement, or B-Corp and a lot of companies, I think now in 2013, we have over 700 companies that have actually gone through the certification, which is kind of a rigorous assessment that companies would take with a nonprofit called B Lab, which administers this criteria assessment and you can become a certified B Corp if you satisfy a certain amount of the criteria and it’s rigorous and it’s audited so it has a third party credibility and more and more companies are doing this. They realize that really, companies have a connection to the community and they have a lot of power because they’ve got money, they’ve got the resources of people and their innovations and their creative thinking and if companies operate in a way that provides economic benefit but also environmental benefit and social benefit in the community, it’s going to make the community stronger and it’s going to really present an economic model that’s going to take us out into the future so we applaud companies in their approach to how this can work for their own company.

Now for Ben & Jerry’s, the way we do this is we really kind of work our way through the pint. We try to figure out through the entire value chain, from the seeds of cocoa and coffee, which we eventually use for flavoring, to the dairy farms, we’ve got a set of values and criteria that we use that we think is important, like supporting smallholder producers of cocoa and coffee and vanilla, making sure that those people in the emerging and developing world make a sustainable living and so we source ingredients through Fair Trade Certification and fair trade’s a model that provides the criteria to make sure that these growers receive a fair price for their cocoa and coffee and vanilla and bananas and things like that, which we all use in our ice cream and then for the family farms that have the dairy cows. I want to make sure that we are supporters of family farms and not these kind of mega industrial farms. We actually have a point of view that we don’t think that’s sustainable but we think that family farms in communities really have a more sustainable approach from our point of view so we want to support that and we’ve got a very robust sustainable program with family dairy farms. We call it Caring Dairy and it has 11 categories of sustainability, social, environmental, and economic, things like soil health, water health, health of the animals, the health of the farm itself economically and how it is working within the community so we’ve been able to design a whole program there that we work with, the cooperatives that we’re working with and the family farms in those cooperatives, and we’re seeing that as they apply this Caring Dairy program and we work together on it to develop it, hopefully, they’re able to run more prosperous family farms because we’re losing family farms around the world.

We’re losing them especially in the U.S. but around the world so we’re trying to use the power of our business to support them so that’s fair trade ingredients for the flavorings and then the Caring Dairy program for the dairy farmers and then we go all the way to the packaging and we use FSC-certified packaging, which is Forest Stewardship Council Certified packaging, and FSC is the gold standard for sustainable management of forests and the harvesting of the forests and then all the way to the freezers. We’ve petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to bring in cleaner greener freezers into the U.S., which up until we petitioned them, were not allowed in the US and these freezers use 40% less energy and they use a closed loop system that’s climate neutral and so we’ve been bringing those freezers in after petitioning the EPA and doing a test period to show that they’re safe and we’re able to maintain them so what we’re trying to do is through the entire business, wherever it is, that we can make business decisions that produce some sort of additional benefit in the way we make business decisions and the way we execute them.

John: Through the whole supply chain so you’re telling me, and for our listeners, and of course Ben & Jerry doesn’t need me to promote their amazing product. That’s already so successful around the world but by eating and buying more of your ice cream as just an action, we get to support more good fair trade practices, the promotion of Caring Dairies, the promotion of all the things you’re doing. The whole supply chain gets touched and gets benefited because it gives a boost in terms of the use of their products and services.

Rob: That’s the idea. The idea is that by providing products to the consuming public that are created in a way that produces additional benefits so that we’re all able to participate in that loop of really length prosperity, it comes back to the mission statement because as we spend our money, make the products, bring them to the marketplace, and then people can enjoy them, there’s a complete loop of prosperity in that where everybody is sharing in that all along that value chain.

John: For all our listeners who just tuned in, we’ve got Rob Michalak on. He’s the Director of Social Mission at Ben & Jerry. You can see their social mission and all the great work he’s doing and they’re doing at www.benjerry.com. Rob, in some of the historical pieces and even some of the more modern pieces I’ve seen in terms of business pieces and other things on Ben and Jerry, I’ve seen some of your founders’ and your great efforts in terms of lobbying and politics and things of that such and I understand that recently, your company is cooking up in the social department some issues in regards to using non GMO ingredients. Can you explain the taking on of some of these more controversial and political issues and how that affects your product and how that affects, as you say, the greater world and all of our prosperity?

Rob: In the country right now, there’s a big movement for consumers to know what’s in their product so that they can make choices in the marketplace and we had been a little bit slow, been a little bit flat footed in terms of participating in that specific issue around GMOs in foods and we’ve actually always been a company that has been a proponent of non GMO agriculture and ingredients and so what’s been happening now is that state by state, a lot of state legislatures are looking at legislation that would require that if GM ingredients are in a product, that they would need to be part of the label to let consumers know so that consumers can make a choice. Some consumers might not care. Others do but they need to have the information to be able to make that choice so we realize that over the years, we’ve been really a proponent of that. In the early days, we found that in Bovine Growth Hormone, which is a growth hormone shot into cows so that they produce more milk, which really isn’t too fair for the cows if you think about it. We’ve been against that. We communicated with our consumers about it. We labeled about it so we were way in the forefront of this and with the GMO thing, we got a little bit behind the pack but we’re working toward state by state legislation, which actually would support a national framework as well but in the absence of a national framework. Congress is having its issues of getting things done and we don’t want to waste time necessarily.

John: Well put.

Rob: The states are doing it on their own and often times, that’s what will happen at the state level first. Right now, we’re supporting an initiative at Washington State. There’s one in Vermont, our home state. Connecticut is looking at an initiative and then there’s probably about 27 other states that have in some part some sort of initiative on GMO labeling so we’re supporting that. We’ve come out in favor of that and what we’re trying to do too is when it comes to GM agriculture, a lot of the corn and soy and sugar beets in the US have really gotten into just genetically modified feeds and it’s becoming the predominant way of agriculture and we’re saying that we really believe we need to keep a conventional sector of agriculture that uses non GM seeds so that there’s the choice for that.

Now organic, by virtue of the way organic is done, is automatically non GM so people who buy organic and support organic, they’re already in the non GMO category or Genetically Modified Organisms or genetically engineered is another way people refer to it so we think that in the middle there, in the conventional ground, there is a lot of agriculture still where farmers are using good sustainable methods of agriculture, rotating crops using cover crops and different methods that they don’t need to use GM seeds to get the yield that they want to get. We want to support that and so we’re also spearheading an effort to create more demand in US agriculture for conventional non GM corn and soy and sugar beets so that people can rely on having ingredients and foods that they can purchase at the marketplace that might have multiple ingredients in them, like Ben & Jerry’s has a lot of chunks and swirls, but that they can rely on the fact that they will be non GM and we’ll label it to that effect so that people can know and they can make their choice.

John: Rob, we’re down to the last three minutes or so and you’re doing so much with what you just laid out for us with regards to fair trade, with regards to Caring Dairies, using non GMO ingredients, which we all appreciate, from my children to my wife to myself and all of our friends. People are really getting very interested in all of these, as you say, but since sustainability is truly a process and a journey, what’s now on your radar for the future, from 2013 and beyond for Ben & Jerry’s? What’s next ahead?

Rob: What we want to figure out next is how to measure what good does any of this do so let’s say we buy fair trade ingredients but how do we know that fair trade provides those benefits? So we’re working with multiple partners to make sure that we’re able to really measure that and capture that to see where the promise of all these things are and identify any gaps, like in the fair trade model. If there are gaps there, how can we participate in bridging those gaps and really making these models strong and applying that across the board, making sure that family farms are still alive and vigorous and that people are getting good food, that they can make their choices whether it’s got GM or non-GM so we just want to keep building on that and we also want to be able to measure and share that with everybody. We actually publish every year on our website a report. It’s called The Social Environmental Assessment Report or SEAR, so that people can see, bad and good, how we’re doing against our goals and just keep building on that.

John: Rob, we’re down to the last minute and a lot of young people listen to our show around the United States, actually around the world, and we get emails and they ask us, ‘How can I be the next Rob Michalak?’ Can you give in 60 seconds or less some pearls of wisdom to the young people out there that listen to the show?

Rob: I think in terms of business, young people, they’re very good about what’s needed in the community. If there’s a service or product that they can provide that provides a benefit along with a nice sustainable profit, they should develop that and as they go through school, get a good education but also, you can start getting into courses now that talk about sustainable business and socially responsible business so that path can be a good one and we need those entrepreneurs. We need good social entrepreneurs that are successful so I encourage all the young people to follow that path.

John: That is awesome and Rob, you are always welcome to come back on to Green is Good and share everything that you’re doing at Ben & Jerry and beyond and for our listeners out there, continue to support Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, www.benjerry.com. Rob Michalak, the Director of Social Mission at the current Ben & Jerry’s, you’re also an inspirational ambassador of length prosperity and you are truly living proof that green is good. Thank you for coming on today.

Rob: Thanks. A real pleasure. It’s good to be with you.

John Shegerian: This edition of The Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com

John: Welcome to another edition of The Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian and this is a very special edition of The Impact Podcast because we’ve got with us, Daniel Puckett. He’s the founder of Boom Foods. Welcome to The Impact, Daniel.

Daniel Puckett: Cheers. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. Excited to chat and get the message out there, get to talk a little bit.

John: Daniel, before we get talking about your wonderful entrepreneurial journey launching Boom Foods, and launching a new product Boom, which I just love this packaging and I love the name of your product. I want to talk a little bit about Daniel Puckett. Share a little bit about where you grew up, what informed you as you were growing up in terms of environment, what you ate, how you live, etc., and how you decided to become such a young entrepreneur with a big vision and a big dream?

Daniel: Well, at first off, I appreciate the kind words, but overall, I’m still a young guy, but started here in Seattle where I’m recording now. Jim Puckett is my dad. Some of the people who listen might know him. ban.org and e-Stewards, that whole deal. My mom Linda Farrell. She’s from the Netherlands and those two forces combined, obviously what shaped me. My dad being an entrepreneur from early on, an activist entrepreneur doing his own thing kind of encouraged me to do the same. My mom always pretty much was like, you got to do what you love, don’t ever just sit behind a desk and hate what you’re doing. So those two forces kind of pushed me to want to get out in the world and do something for my own and then overall growing up in Seattle. Pretty standard childhood. Played sports, hung out with my friends, Seahawks, Mariners games, the whole deal. So yes, it was a great childhood and I had a supportive family and kind of a good foundation that gave me the ability, the purposes to get to try to do my own thing at a young age. That’s my upbringing[?].

John: So when you get out of high school, did you go to college after that?

Daniel: Yes. So I went to West Seattle High School and then went to California Polytechnic. So Cal Poly down in SLO.

John: Slow?

Daniel: Yes. San Luis Obispo. So I had a wonderful time there. I didn’t stick it out the whole time, unfortunately. I did start wanting to sell these bars and get the business off the ground but had a great time down there. Went with some friends from home, which always makes it a little easier. And got to leave the home state which is as much as I love Seattle, it’s nice to go check out a new area, especially California. Especially San Luis Obispo for those who have really got to go there. It’s pretty gorgeous on the Central Coast. So overall I’ve had the most blessed upbringing and young life so far.

John: How old are you now?

Daniel: I’m 22.

John: You’re 22. It’s so young, but that’s such a great age to be an entrepreneur because I tell this to all young entrepreneurs that come to me all the time. It’s all upside no downside. You could fail and fail and fail again and really it’s not failing frankly speaking. It’s just learning, it’s just lessons. At 22, this is going to succeed and other deals you’re going to do is succeed. But you’re so young with great vision and great energy. It’s such a great age to be starting a business and I highly recommend it for all those others that are out there at a desk that isn’t happy. Being an entrepreneur, and a young entrepreneur is just such a blessed position to be in. Daniel, when did you start? You’re 22 now and we’re sitting in the middle of 2021. When did you start dreaming this up and why a vegan plant-based bar? Did you grow up eating plant-based, or partially plant-based? And when did the dream start coming together?

Daniel: Yes. I’ve always wanted to kind of do my own thing. As I mentioned, my parents pushed me to be happy whatever I’m doing and for me, that meant being my own boss. I always wanted to start something, but I wasn’t exactly sure what. I didn’t have necessarily the thing, drawing me in one direction or the other. This idea came to me in my second year of college. So about two years ago now. I think we’re coming up right on two years and as far as the plant-based and the vegan goes, I think for me, I’m not vegan or plant-based, but what was so important was being inclusive to any sort of diet that’s out there. So, anyone that would get a chance to try our bar, I didn’t want them to be restricted because they prescribe the plant-based or maybe they have allergens. We steer clear of the top eight allergens. Some people put coconut in there, which we do have, but as far as the rest of the nuts, dairy things of that nature, we wanted to steer clear because I don’t want there to be an objection or a dietary restriction that’s going to stop anyone from getting to enjoy what we make or what we cooked up. So for us, it was more about inclusivity than necessarily being vegan or whatnot. So, yes.

John: I like it. And for our listeners who just joined us and our viewers, I’ve got Daniel Puckett. He’s the founder of Boom Foods. You can find Daniel and his great products at www.eatboom.co. eatboom.co. These products are really cool looking. There it is right there. I’ve eaten these bars. I’m a fan. I’m going to tell my story a little while, but Daniel, you started dreaming about it two years ago. How long did it take you? And how did you come up with a recipe, the name, and also the shape because all these unique– First of all, I’m shocked the name was available. I love it though. I love the name. Secondarily, how did you come up with the square, but first how did you come up with the recipe?

Daniel: Yes. So overall, I’ll go a little bit back in some more context. The idea itself, I was sitting in my entrepreneurship class, which is a great thing. Cal Poly has that. And our professor brought in this guest speaker who was the CFO of Clif Bar at the time. Might still be, I’m not totally sure but he came in, so great speaker. He came in and was telling the story of Clif Bar and their struggles and their successes. And then he said something that really kind of struck a chord which was that all these smaller bar companies that provide kind of a functional benefit; we’re just eating up their market share and doing super well. And by functional benefit, essentially it’s something beyond just the snack. So whether it’s a probiotic or immunity or energy in our case, they were doing super well and consumers we’re loving the combination of the convenience of a bar with that extra benefit. And so as a caffeine-addicted college kid, that set up a light bulb. I was like, “Oh, my God. Yes. We got to combine these two.” And so right away, I ran to the store. Well, actually first, I ran home. Looked up how to make homemade protein bars, granola bars, and essentially, they were saying it’s just some dates, nuts throw it in a blender, you can make something happen. So, I had the brilliant or not so brilliant idea to use instant coffee as my caffeine source. So took that recipe, added the instant coffee, and just started blending up these not-so-tasty but effective early, early Boom Bars and started giving them out to friends. Kind of getting feedback and overall, they were like, “All right, it tastes a little weird. I can definitely taste the instant coffee grains in there,” but they loved the idea. They were like, “I can eat these subs for a cup of coffee or energy drink.” So they loved it. So from there, I was like, “Okay, so we got something going here. We got to make a better recipe.” And I wasn’t going to be the one to cook that up because to get something from a blender to a package, I did not realize how many steps and how difficult that can be.

So we reached out to a food scientist and by we, I mean my co-founder who I had brought on at this point who’s my good friend Lucas, my big brother in my fraternity at college. So we reached out to a food scientist and we were like, “All right, we don’t have much money and we don’t have much of a recipe, but here’s this idea,” and she was super excited about it. She hadn’t heard of it. Kind of thought of it almost as a challenge, and took us on for way less than she normally would and we just started developing a recipe with her. And it was a ton of fun and then to answer your other question about the name, I started with Bullet Bar which is a little more aggressive. Not as great. It was kind of my co-founder and I going like Bullet Bars. It’s okay, but it’s not quite there and just brainstorming and brainstorming. I think he was probably the one that at one point was like Boom. What if we put boom? There’s bang but what about boom? And obviously, it’s a universal word. People say it all the time. That kind of conveys that energy so we loved it and like you said shocked that it wasn’t taken. I mean I was pretty surprised about it, but yes, we locked up Boom, started rolling with that because we thought it was a heck of a lot better than Bullet Bar. And then, yes, as I said, we were just kind of developing the recipe with this food scientist and slowly but surely getting to the product that you’ve got a chance to try and hopefully some of you guys listening [inaudible].

John: How long was the recipe process, back and forth taste testings, everything?

Daniel: Honestly I would say about a year. I would approximate that and even then, up until the final hour, little tweaks to make it slightly better, and we’ll probably maybe revisit it again and keep trying to improve. But yes, that whole process is kind of interesting. So first our food scientist say, “Okay, you guys know nothing.” We were like, “Yes, you’re right.” And so she had us go and try every single bar out there. So I went to the store and the cashier probably thought I was nuts, but I bought pretty much every bar on the shelf and tasted, textured, made notes, and then gave those notes to her. I was like, okay, we want something that’s differentiated. Something that’s got a nice soft texture, but maybe some crunch in there and pretty much just got the handcraft that we were looking for in a bar. And then pretty much give her some guidelines and what we were good with to use for ingredients, what we wanted to steer away from. There are restrictions that we wanted to be vegan and try to be as inclusive to everyone. She started whipping up different kinds of iterations, and she’d mail them out to us. We’d take our notes, give them to our friends, send it back and that went back and forth. And then what was super fun as we got to go up to Burlingame where she was based, so up in the Bay Area and do some one-on-one sessions where we would just be in the lab trying a whole bunch of different bars. Going through maybe 5, 10 iterations in a day. Getting super caffeinated, but that’s where the real magic happens. Just those tiny little tweaks. What I was saying, overall pretty long process. Like a good year or so.

John: And your partner Lucas, co-founder came up with the name during that year’s process.

Daniel: Yes. I think we switched to Boom pretty early on. I think it was while we were still making them ourselves. We were just like, okay, Bullet Bar. I just don’t like guns, this. Let’s try to find something that’s a little stronger. Maybe a better connotation, and yes, we came up with Boom. I’m not exactly sure who, but I think it was him. Yes, then from there it was Boom Bar from there on out.

John: I know I bought these from you. I bought a case of them from you and a sleeve of them. And two weeks ago, I was at my desk, had a business dinner the night before, I gave blood that week and there was also over a 100 degrees, like it up[?] to be in Fresno during this time of year and I was fading. At this time of day, I had two or three podcasts to tape and I had one of these bars and I’ll tell you what, not only was it delicious, but man, it did the trick. This Boom Bar does the trick, but it’s also very delicious. What I noticed is two things here. A, the size of the bar, and I love protein bars. And being a vegan and traveling a lot, you got to get used to that whole deal and for convenience sake, and living on the run and odd hours, but also, I noticed the shape and I noticed the ingredients from the front. Please explain to our listeners, viewers, myself, how did you come up with the shape and why the ingredients are on the front because they’re typically on the back?

Daniel: Yes 100%. I didn’t quite get to that shape question. So the shape for us, it was about we want to be as differentiated as possible. I think a lot of bars are kind of that longer rectangle, more of a candy bar shape and we wanted to differentiate and kind of show that we’re something a little bit different. So we went with a little more of a square and not only was that just differentiation from a standard candy bar or whatnot, but also to set ourselves apart as a bar as a whole. We are a bar, but first and foremost, we’re a caffeine product. To show people, okay, it’s this quick, couple bite-sized product. We thought it set us apart ever so slightly and I kind of like doing that. I like just going a little bit away from the pack. If it’s a good product, it only helps you. So that was kind of the leading thought behind the shape of it. And then, as far as the ingredients on the front, we want to be as straightforward as possible. Show people exactly what’s in it. As a consumer, as all of us as consumers, I think the things we care about are like okay, what does this product do for me, and then what’s in? Does that sit right with me? So I didn’t want people to have to flip over and either be unpleasantly surprised or you don’t have to read this small text. We want to put it right on the front. So on the front of our packaging, it says the calories, the protein, the caffeine content, and then the ingredients because that’s what people care about, and that’s what people want to know. So, rather than try to hide it, I think not necessary that’s what other companies are doing but that is kind of inadvertently the standard way to do it. We want to put it upfront so I appreciate you asking that question. I think it’s an important part of our whole kind of brand ethos if you will.

John: Well, it’s funny. I think your generation is part of this whole ESG Circular Economy Revolution and one of the pillars of good ESG behavior and circular economy behavior is radical transparency. I think you’ve nailed it. I think others are going to follow you. I mean you can’t be more radically transparent than adding in size type that a 58-year-old guy like me could still read on the front of your bar the ingredients. I don’t think it comes better than this and I think you’re going to be on the front end of a trend that others will follow you because this is called radically transparent disclosure of everything that’s in there. There is no guessing. There’s no after I eat half the bar, I turn it over and I freaked out and this is everything right there before I even put it in my mouth and that’s really good stuff. I think that’s great entrepreneurship and great business practices as a whole. I think your generation is going to lead the way on that. I think it’s going to really pave the way[?].

Daniel: I hope so and I hope for now it differentiates us and it’s something that our early adopters really respect, but I really do hope it happens across the industry or all Industries because it’s important. People need to know what’s in their products, know what they’re using, know what they’re eating. So, yes, I really do hope that other brands follow suit. We’re certainly not the first but it’s definitely not standard, a common practice. So I hope it becomes commonplace because why do we always flip it over? It’s natural instinct for everyone to flip it over and go read the tiny font. Let’s just put it on the front. Make it easier for people. Make people make informed decisions. I think, hopefully, our generation can do a little bit of that.

John: I think you are and you’re starting it and that’s always good to lead on those kinds of things. Talk a little bit about your founder, Lucas. Where’s he live now? How do you guys operate the business? And when did you launch this thing, officially launched? When did you and Lucas launch this?

Daniel: Yes, so Lucas, one of my best friends. Like I said, he was my big brother in my fraternity. Always looked up to the guy. When I had this idea, it was a no-brainer. That’s who I want to jump into this with. One because like I said, best friend, but also just a very, very intelligent guy, and he really complements where I maybe fall up short. I like to think of myself as maybe big idea, creativity, let’s push the big idea, 10-year plan and he’s great when it comes to operations, putting one foot in front of the other. So having those complementary skill sets is huge and he’s down in Huntington Beach, California at the moment. Just overall like I said, smart guy. He graduated in finance. Something that I know nothing about, which apparently is helpful when you’re running a business to have someone that knows numbers. So he’s been great and then as far as officially launching, we launched on Friday, June 11. So pretty recent. Pretty new. It’s been going super well. A lot of good feedback. Yes, it’s funny. So much time leading up to it and then all of sudden it’s out there and you’re out in the world and it’s a whole different experience being someone that’s building a business and now someone that has a business even a small one. So it’s been a ton of fun.

John: For our listeners and viewers, we’ve got today with us Daniel Puckket. He’s the founder of Boom Foods. You can find Daniel and his partner Lucas and their great products, the Boom Bars at www.eatboom.co. Daniel, why? There’s a lot of people are going to watch this, or listen to it or read it because it’s going to be in all three forms and say, might as well just drink my coffee instead of eat my coffee, or drink a cup of coffee or something with caffeine in it to get a little buzz. Why is eating caffeine different than drinking it and how is it potentially more beneficial?

Daniel: Yes. So I don’t think we’re naive enough to think we’re going to kill the coffee industry. I’m in Seattle, home of coffee if you will, home of Starbucks, all the big guys [crosstalk].

John: You’re not putting Starbucks out of business anytime soon?

Daniel: Not quite. It’s long term. I’m young like you said. I got a lot of [crosstalk].

John: Right. You got a long way to go. You can do it.

Daniel: Exactly, but overall, I think there’s a lot of reasons, one, to eat your caffeine if you will. Some people when they drink coffee they’re going to have either jitter or they’re going to have a crash or one of the side effects. And it always kind of feels like this dance with coffee. You either have one cup and you didn’t quite get there or you had two or three and now all of a sudden you can’t focus on what you’re doing. You’re all jittery and then you crash an hour later. So when you’re eating your caffeine, it seems like such a simple solution, but it really takes away a lot of those problems. You combine that real food with the caffeine. So it’s going to solve any stomach issues you might have. Eating that real food kind of allows those jitters to be subsided. You’re getting a real dose of caffeine, but you’re also getting some food to settle you down. And then you’re not going to crash because you’re getting that long energy from the macros that you need, the proteins, little bit of carbs. So it gives you that all-day energy from real food, but also that spark of caffeine that we all kind of crave and need.

So overall, I think it’s just a beneficial thing to have out there. The fact that it wasn’t an option before and we’re trying to make it one, I think is exciting. And then going away from coffee a little bit, maybe that’s what you have in the morning but a lot of people are reaching for maybe something not as great later in the afternoon. You said it’s 108 degrees or something in Fresno. Most people, they’re maybe going for a bottled coffee or an energy drink and those, unfortunately, are just chalked full of crap. Like it’s chemicals, it sugars and it’s really not what your body needs. That’s guaranteed to make you crash a little bit later in the day. Guaranteed to not make you feel great. It’s not what your body wants or needs. So, as far as replacing those, I think we have a real shot and that’s kind of our goal is to give people a better alternative to those grab-and-go kinds of caffeine drinks that are out there because those are really not so great for you folks.

John: So, now you’re a couple of months into this barely. What are the next steps? What’s the rest of 2021 look like and what’s 2022 and beyond look like for you when you put it up on a whiteboard?

Daniel: Yes so I think for us right now, we’re really trying to test kind of our messaging. What’s resonating with people? Is it real food plus caffeine? Is it caffeine and protein? Is it the convenience factor? You can just throw it in a bag and go. What is the kind of key points that people really like and then, taking those and deploying them into our marketing? So going on a podcast like this, getting a chance to talk about it, putting it into some digital ads, whether that’s Instagram or Facebook, and really starting to get the message out there. The messages that people really care about and then from there, it’s marketing, trying to get some traction, get some more feedback. Potentially make another product, whether it’s a smaller or bigger version of this bar but yes, for us, I think it starts with listening to the customer. Like you said, we’re super young. We’re super new. So listening to what the customer likes, what they need next, and trying to just be there and provide that. So that’s our plan. I think we want to be really patient and really just try to be the best business. Be a customer-first, business if you will.

John: When you go to bed at night and you dream about where this is going to be on display one day, and you will. You’ll get it wherever you want to get it. Where would be the dream place to be selling this at point of sail across America? Like what would be your favorite? Where look at it and you finally got accepted in that location and you walked in that store, and it’s there and you say, “Ah, now, I did something. Now, we’re on a roll. We’re going to go someplace.” What’s your dream? What are you and Lucas dreaming about as to where to get placement for this great Boom Bar.

Daniel: Wow. Well, I love, love that question because I think it’s one, something people don’t always think about and two, I think we maybe have a slightly different answer than a lot of food startups that are out there. I think a lot of people want to get into Whole Foods or get into the most prestigious local market or whatnot. And for us, I think it’s being on every 7-Eleven checkout stand. Right next to Fiber Energy, close to the energy drinks because it’s great to be in Whole Food. It’s great to be in those specialty markets but a product of this quality, a better option for you should be available to everyone. Should be available when they need it, when they want it. So for us, I think it’s being accessible and to me, that’s convenience stores. That’s running in, you’re late to work, you grab it. Maybe you’re a construction worker, you’re headed to the site, you grab it. Not necessary that Whole Foods or these other places are snobby or inaccessible. It’s just I want to be there for the everyman, the every person that needs that energy and is looking for something a little healthier or slightly differentiated. So for us it’s 7-Eleven. I know we’re going to get there which is going to be awesome but yes, love that question.

John: When you and Lucas think about entrepreneurship and I know you study this but also you had it growing up with your dad being an entrepreneur and a successful one and one that’s made a great impact on this planet Earth. When you’re creating your own identity and personal brand and then this great Boom brand like what company you’re trying to model yourself after? Are you looking for Starbucks which is Howard Schultz has done amazing and great things? Bezos is doing wonderful things at Amazon. In their give-back, Gates is. You have a plant-based product that helps people be sharper, live a better and more vibrant life. Who are you trying to model yourself after or what role models are you looking to?

Daniel: Another great question. I think one that pops out of me and the name of the founders escapes to me, but the Chobani store is super interesting for those that are familiar. So Chobani does pretty much Greek yogurts, healthy grab-and-go dairy snacks, now, some plant-based snacks, but that was started by an immigrant. I think Hamdi something. It’s escaped me but, started by an immigrant who came here, took a risk, and bought this old craft cheese factory or yogurt factory and had this dream of kind of bringing one of his homeland’s food, Greek yogurt, and bring it here, making it accessible. And that’s kind of been an inspiration of someone who took a healthy option but made it palatable for the whole country. Did it the right way. He provides jobs to immigrants. He provides jobs to refugees, to inmates. He gives people a second chance. He gave all the factory workers a stake in the company. I just think that’s a company that does things really, really right and makes an impact if you will. So that’s definitely one that I look up to and then two and this is maybe on the flip side because he does receive some criticism but you mentioned it was Amazon and Jeff Bezos. I don’t actually love all their practices, but they really put the customer first and that’s something that he’s always preached. And I think it’s something that all businesses should think about doing because I think once you have sales coming in and people like your product, the magnitude of someone giving you their hard-earned dollars kind of gets lost on you and I think it never should because it’s a big deal and everyone works hard for their money. So for someone to hand it over is a pretty monumental thing from the first sale to the last. So the fact that he stayed very, very true to being customer-centric and trying to put those needs first, is always something that I’ve looked up to tremendously.

John: I think both are great role models. I think you’re right about putting the customer first. When you look at my seven core values, which were right on my email signature block. Our first core value is we’re customer-obsessed and we are because without customers, there’s nothing else to talk about. There’s no business really to talk about. So I think you’ve got that right. Daniel, we’re going to follow your success in the months and years to come. We’re going to have you come back on Impact. Maybe we’ll even do one of these interviews in person. We do that often. We’ve done it with other plant-based startups and other great entrepreneurs out there. I just want to give you the final word before we have to sign off for today.

Daniel: Right on. Well, again, appreciate you having me on and to everyone that’s listening, I appreciate you guys tuning in, hearing us, chop it up for a little bit here. But check it out, eatboom.co, like he said. Whether you buy today or just want to go take a peek. We got an interesting thing going on. I don’t know, we’ve kind of mentioned it here, but it’s a cafe to protein bar. It’s real food. It’s caffeine. It’s a really great option if you’re looking for some energy. So please check us out, but overall be nice to everyone and have a great day.

John: I’ve known your father a long time and I met you when you were a little guy and it makes me so proud and happy to have you on today. I’m so excited for you. I’m so excited for the future. I love the impact you’re making. I love your whole ethos and how you created the mission and vision of this company. I wish you continued success and thanks for making a great impact on this planet. Daniel Puckett, we wish you all the luck and we can’t wait to have you back again.

Daniel: Cheers. Thank you, guys.

John: This edition of The Impact Podcast is brought to you by Trajectory Energy Partners. Trajectory Energy Partners brings together landowners, electricity users, and communities, to develop solar energy projects with strong local support. For more information on how Trajectory is leading the solar revolution, please visit trajectoryenergy.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the impact podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe, even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the impact podcast. I’m John Shegerian. This edition takes us back to my hometown of Long Island New York. I’m so excited to have with us today, Joan Olivero. Welcome to the impact podcast, Joan.

Joan Olivero: Hi John. How are you doing?

John: I am great today. This is so fun. I think you are sitting in Oyster Bay, New York today?

Joan: Yes, I am.

John: As I shared with you earlier before we started the show, I grew up very close to you. I grew up in Little Neck, New York. I had a lot of friends from Oyster Bay. It’s a lovely, lovely part of this country. And I think you’re a lucky person to be having grown up over there. Do you agree?

Joan: I definitely am lucky. I love living in Oyster Bay. I think it’s one of the best places ever.

John: That’s so nice. Before we get talking about all the great impacts you’re making and what you’ve been doing with the Girl Scouts and Best Buy, and Cord Clutter Connection, which all of our viewers, listeners, and readers should go to cordclutterconnection.com and check out Joan’s great work.

Before we get talking about that, tell us a little bit about your back story. Where were you born, where you grew up, and how you even got interested in the environment. And making an impact and making your community a better place?

Joan: I’ve been a New York resident my entire life. I was born in the city at NYU. We moved out to Oyster Bay when I was about 2 or 3. I’ve lived in an area that has every type of environmental thing that you could ask for. Because I live in a suburb and we have the urban area right so close to us. And I also have the bay right there. I grew up around the bay around a lot of trees because we lived in a little foresty area. I grew up surrounded by a lot of environments. I’ve grown up being on the water. I’ve sailed, I do crew. I did a lot of things with the environment and with this land around us. I’ve also been a Girl Scout my whole life, since about kindergarten. So, I’ve done this all the way through my high school and my entire school journey. Throughout this whole Girl Scouts journey, my troop leaders have focused on an environmental lens and taped everything. Because they wanted us, Girl Scouts, to see the world around us in a greater light and having to create a goal of a positive impact on our world. They’ve also brought us up with having an appreciation for nature and allowing us to have our own voice. And help us create change and helping us develop our own choices and actions. That allowed me to push forward towards where I wanted to go.

John: I’m always interested in what’s going on with your generation. Given that I’m 58 now and my kids are older, so I’m always fascinated. You’re saying you had the blessing of growing up very close to New York City.

Joan: Yes.

John: As you said, one of the greatest urban areas on this planet. You also had the blessing of the beautiful bay area, the water, and the ocean there. Crew is one of the toughest sports on the planet, as I’ve come to know it. So, you’re a crew member, but you’re also a Girl Scout.

Joan: Yes.

John: And I want to go more into the Girl Scout issue. First of all, are you the oldest child, the youngest child, or an only child?

Joan: I am the oldest child out of 2. I have a 14-year-old brother. He was a Boy Scout. He now does travel sports so he is not able to do Boy Scouting now. So, I have that oldest sibling:

“I want to do a whole bunch of stuff and I want to do it right, and show him.”

John: Right. You’re the leader. You’re the leading sibling. As I’ve learned is, because my daughter is the older one, out of my two children as well. As the older one goes, the younger one will follow for better or for worse. So you’re setting the example. Mom and Dad, I’m sure have told you that. It’s fun to learn about the inspiration the Girl Scouts gave you. We’re going to get more to the Girl Scouts in a second. But were mom and dad also part of this? Were they environmentalist? Were they concerned about the environment? Was that part of the household ecosystem? Let’s recycle, let’s compost or was it mostly learned from Girl Scouts and other areas?

Joan: It’s kind of a mix of both. I’ve grown up we would always take all the bottles that we get from wherever and we would go one weekend and go recycle all of them. Where we get like $24 and that was the biggest thing that I’ve ever seen, however old I was! We always went camping. My parents always pushed for ”Enjoy the environment, the place you live. You have so much here. Enjoy what’s around you.” So, I had that environmental-, just enjoy it. This is such an amazing thing, enjoy it and kind of take your opportunity to just be surrounded by it.

John: Got it. And how about the former school? When I was growing up in elementary school, and then junior high school on Long Island, then I went to high school in Manhattan. Environmental studies weren’t a thing and remember, I’m many generations older than you. Three, four generations older than you. Was it a thing in your elementary and high school? Or again, was this from home life and Girl Scout life that you really got inspired? Or was formal education also part of the inspiration as well?

Joan: There was some formal education involvement because every year our curriculum has us talk about Earth Day and do little activities on that, and I took a living environment course that’s mandatory in my high school. We spoke about the biology behind the environment and all that, but besides that, we never really focused on or up until a certain point leading up to high school. There was never really a true focus on environmental issues and studies. As of late, these last two years, my high school, me, and a few friends have worked towards creating an environmental club instead. My two friends are the president. I’m currently the treasurer of the environment club. [crosstalk] We’re focusing, we’re bringing that lack of environmental studies and issues into our high school and creating some programs to get some environmental movement in our schools.

John: That’s just truly wonderful. And you are a senior at Oyster Bay High School and you’re 17 years old currently, is that it?

Joan: Yes I am.

John: Wow, I’m beyond impressed. Now, let’s talk a little bit about Joan, where you’re at now? What was the project you chose? How do you choose it? And how do we even get here today? Talk a little bit about that.

Joan: Like I had said, my Girl Scout leaders had always focused on allowing us to have a voice and make our own choices, but also that love for nature and involving environmental topics all the time. We’ve done things with the environment throughout my Girl Scout journey in my troop. For our Bronze award, which is a group-wide award, we focused on creating a rock garden and planting trees in our area and also out east in the Hamptons. For my silver award, I worked with three other of my Girl Scout friends. We created an initiative to keep crayons out of landfills. Which we worked with a program in California that does crayon recycling. We held a school-wide collection so we could take these old and used crayons and repackage them and recycle them into new, freshly made crayons that were donated to Children’s Hospitals. Through that, I’ve had that environmental path, in that way. But I didn’t really know what to do with my Gold Award because this is such a big award. It’s such a big deal. There’s only about 5% of Girl Scouts that actually earn it. I wanted to do something that was important to me and I saw that environmental flow throughout my Girl Scout project. I took that opportunity to work towards recycling. Initially, I chose to do glass recycling because there is some program in my town that focuses on glass recycling. But in the past few years, since glass recycling has kind of halted in the U.S.; it was really hard to create a startup program. That’s what turned me towards E-Waste.

John: That’s wonderful. Did you understand-? First of all, I want to go back to the Girl Scouts. Before you matriculate and go to college? Is this a Gold Award project, is that your pinnacle, and your final project in the life history of being a Girl Scout?

Joan: Yes. [crosstalk] The Gold Award is the highest honor you can receive as a Girl Scout because it has to be done before your senior year ends. It’s equivalent to an Eagle Scout award as a Boy Scout and that also has to be done end of your Senior year. So this is kind of like the last hurrah of my girl scouting before I go off to college.

John: So wonderful. I’m so happy you chose E-Waste. I want to ask you this though because I’m always fascinated by what people in the world know since I’m in that industry. But I’m in a box, in a little cocoon. I lose touch sometimes with what other people really know. I know plastic and glass. Plastic especially gets tremendous publicity for being the boogeyman of the environment. Gets in the ocean, harm our turtles and stuff, but did you know even going into this project that E-Waste is the fastest-growing solid waste stream in the world?

Joan: Initially, I didn’t. Since I had to make that change from glass recycling to E-Waste. I had spoken with my local town government and they had pointed me in the direction saying this is an issue we have in our town. My time has a landfill that does collection for E-waste. But it’s not that widely known in my town, so no one really knows that it’s going on. I took the initiative to ”Oh, this is an issue in my town let’s take that opportunity.” I did some research and the more I researched, the more Best Buy kept coming up. Corey Barry kept coming up. And saying how they would be the leading recyclers or retail recyclers for E-waste. I was like, ”This is incredible”. I reached out to her and sent her an email. She put me in touch with the head of environmental sustainability. This is where I went on from there. This is how I got in touch with you guys.

John: No. Wait a second. We gotta unpack this a little bit. Okay, you found out E-waste is the fastest-growing solid waste stream, and it’s truly a problem?

Joan: Yes,

John: Then you learned about Corey Barry and Best Buy. Which you went bullseye on, not only one of the greatest CEOs in America currently. In the world currently, frankly speaking. She’s been a guest on this show. She’s just an amazing human being, an amazing leader. [crosstalk] But Best Buy is one of the greatest brands on this planet and is the leading brand in selling electronics obviously. Let’s step back and go through this step by step. How did you even get in touch with Corey Barry? Because there’s a whole generation of young entrepreneurs, Joan. That comes to me for advice, and they are always like, ”Well, I want to be like this person or I want to raise money, or I have this idea,” and they don’t even know how to get going or start, and you just made a plan and took action. How did you even navigate that process to reaching Corey Barry?

Joan: Since I had seen her and Best Buy come up, so frequently as I was doing my research; I just decided to take that leap for it, and just take that risk. I just sent her an email. I’m so inspired by her because she’s a woman entrepreneur. She’s the CEO and she’s a woman and I think that’s amazing. I wanted to reach out to her and she has a whole panel of Women Representatives on her board. I just reached out to her and said ”This is my project. I’m really excited. Is there anything that you can put me in touch with?” And so she put me in touch with the head of environmental sustainability. I just took the leap for it because the only thing that she could have said was, ”Oh, we don’t really know”, but it led me to here.

Joan: Let’s step back, Joan. She could have never even responded to you. That’s very common by many CEO, right? Never even respond. So she responded to you. Not only responded, which again speaks volumes about Corey Barry. So she put you in touch with, I believe a good friend of mine, Tim Dunn?

Joan: Yes. Tim Dunn.

John: One of the best and greatest environmental directors of any corporation or any organization I know. I’ve known Tim, I want to say 14 years, might be a little longer, just another great human being. And also just loves what he does and is great at it. So far, you’ve hit two great people and two of my favorite people in my business career. How do you interact with Tim?

Joan: I had a zoom call with him and his team just to explain my project again and say this is what I want to do. Because everything was just an idea at that point. I think I had a zoom call in March or April of this year. So it was just an idea. I just tried out what I want to say and he kind of led me in a direction of just focus on cords, wires, and cables. That’s why my name is cord clutter connection because of that data privacy issue with laptops and phones and printers and things like that. He helped me hone in on one idea. So it was more accessible and helped me shape my project.

John: He had some members of his team on with them? Teresa was on the call and some others? Teresa is another one of my favorite people. These are just great people who just not only great at what they do, but they love what they do. You made your way, then they recommended you or something to David Herschler, our company?

Joan: Yes. Mr. Dunn had said, we work with ERI. This is what they do. I think you would fit perfectly. Let’s have a zoom call. I talked to David Herschler and that team and explained what my project was. How I wanted to take that next step forward. Now, I had the whole idea and I just had to put it into motion. I had no way of really recycling these cords after I collected them. So I had the, ”I want to collect cords. What do I do with them?” You guys at ERI allowed me to move forward with this and actually do something with my collection.

John: Okay. David Herschler is another really [crosstalk] right? You’ve hit a whole lineup of just really great people, right? Great people. And David, he’s so humble. I don’t know if he ever shared this with you. Not only Tim and Teresa manage the greatest and biggest consumer take-back program in America besides other job titles at Best Buy. They’re the most educated people on the planet when it comes to this stuff. But David was the one before he joined our company. He was one under Mayor Bloomberg that helped launch the recycling program in the city of New York, which has become the most successful consumer recycling program in a city, in the world. That’s David.

Joan: I didn’t know that. That’s amazing.

John: Yeah. He’s one of them. You’ve talked to four of my most favorite people on the planet. So now, you’ve talked with them. They’ve given you guidance. How did we get to, I’m on your website now, cordclutterconnection.com? For our listeners and viewers out there, cordclutterconnection.com. When did you build a website? How did you build it? How did you even know how to build it? And when did you start your collection of Benson? How did it all go?

Joan: I first began to kind of put together my website around June, as I was starting the collection. Because I knew I needed some way for people to access me if I was doing collections and people wanted to reach out. So it was a lot of trial and error. I had my mom helped me with a bunch of the websites, just putting everything together because I don’t know how to put together a website. I’ve never done it before. I just went online. Looked it up and just went from there. There was a lot of processing.

John: Wait a sec, had you or your mom ever done this before?

Joan: No.

John: I don’t know how to do it. I’m 58 years old. I have no idea. I’m so impressed. It’s a very good-looking, very informational, and Easy-to-Read website. How long did it take you to learn how to build a website and then building it?

Joan: The actual ‘learning how to build’ took a few weeks because I was telling everyone that was my website was under construction. While I was doing this collection. I was in the process. I was constantly updating it. I’m still constantly updating it. I make little changes here and there every few days. So it’s not something that’s completely done and it’s going to be completely done. It’s just an ongoing process.

John: Website’s, really living and they have to be iterated and updated and evolve all the time.

Joan: Yes. definitely.

John: You started building it in June. When did it launch actually? When did under construction take that down and put the website itself up?

Joan: I want to say, it was up around late July, I believe. That was when everything was fully up and going and I was already about a month and a half into the collection.

John: So talk about collections. How did the collection process work?

Joan: Yes. In the collection process, I had no way of really collecting by myself. So, I talked to a few people in the town. I spoke with one of the women in the town who also happens to be one of my Girl Scout leaders who runs a farmers market. [crosstalk] I went up to her and I was like, ”I have this idea. This is obviously for my Gold Award. Is there any way you can help me with it?” So, I have now had a booth at her farmers market, where I go every two weeks. I just have a free informational table where I have all the information and education of my project and all of the accessible resources needed. I also collect there.

John: That’s every two weeks on Saturdays or Sundays? When does that work?

Joan: Sunday mornings.

John: Sunday mornings?

Joan: Yes.

John: Got it. Talk a little bit about the response. How’s the response been?

Joan: It’s been amazing. The first few weeks. I was just telling everyone what I was doing, what the actual harms of E-waste were, and how we should be able to help and make a difference. I didn’t get much collection that first few weeks because there’s more of ”here’s what I’m doing” but once those first few weeks started happening, I was getting major responses from everyone in my town. I was meeting people that I’ve never seen before in this town and I’ve lived here my entire life. Coming out and saying, ”This is amazing. This is just such an amazing idea. It’s such a needed idea,” and they were bringing in pounds and pounds of cords every week that it would barely fit in the back of my car.

John: Okay. Let me just tell you the truth. First of all, it’s fascinating because literally, this is what our model is at ERI. We got to go out and educate first and then the response is typically tremendous. That’s what Best Buy does as well. That’s what other people, other leading brands do as well. When they’re coming up and dropping off their cords and then they’re coming to you for advice, ”But wait a second. I also have cell phones and laptops and a dishwasher.” Are they asking you for other advice as well? Where to responsibly dispose of other electronics?

Joan: Yes. As I said, I can’t. I’m only taking cords, cables wires.[crosstalk] They’ve been asking, ”Can I give you batteries? Can I get you a phone? Can I give you the toaster that I have?” I’ve been sending everyone to either, the local landfill that’s doing the E-Waste collection or to Best Buy because they have the collection program. I’ve been getting a bunch of responses. I start to see the same faces or similar faces that come back to the farmer’s market every two weeks. And they’re saying, “Oh, I just dropped off my stuff at Best Buy last week” or “Oh, I went to landfill,” and I think that’s just amazing.

John: That’s so wonderful. And there’s a Best Buy locally in your town, I take it?

Joan: Yes. There’s a Best Buy the next town over in Huntington.

John: Perfect. What was the goal of the project? Was there a weight goal or what was the overall goal for you to earn your Gold Award?

Joan: For the Gold Award, there’s no official goal of what you need to reach or what you need to do. My own goal was to collect about 300 pounds of cords, which I thought was when I first said that goal. I was like, ”I’m never going to reach it. That’s kind of this. That’s just insane. I’m never going to get it,” And now that I still have two or three farmers markets before it closes, and I’m doing a collection in my town in the next two weeks. And at my school, in the next two weeks. I already have about 600 pounds of cords, and I’m still collecting, which I think is insane.

John: Wow, that is insane. When are you given, your Gold Award? When do you matriculate from the Girl Scouts? And then earn that official Gold Award?

Joan: I am finishing up all the paperwork this week to become a Gold Award recipient. In June, I will officially get that award and be finished with my project. But since, one of the necessities of the Gold Award is to create a sustainable project. I’m continuing with my collection and updating my website frequently and continuing, in a way that it doesn’t end after I graduate high school. It doesn’t end after I get the award.

John: Wow, that’s so wonderful. You’re creating a sustainable model for others to follow in your footsteps and to continue to make your community and the world a better place.

Joan: Yes.

John: It’s truly remarkable. Just such a great story and I’m so inspired by it, and you could probably run and win to be the youngest mayor in Oyster Bay, New York at this point. Tell me where should people go to learn more about what you’re doing? And to get the exact times, dates, and places that they can do drop-offs or collection events with you. Where do you want to… Was all that information on cordclutterconnection.com or is there another way to interact with you as well?

Joan: Yes, I have everything on the website, cordclutterconnection.com. I have all of the links to the townland-filled dates, to the farmers market states, to the Oyster Bay Town collection dates, as well as my high school and school-wide district collection dates. I also have links to ERI, Best Buy, and my local town government. I have everything that I have talked about and anything that I’ve talked to anyone about; at the market, through the town, here in this podcast. Everything is up on my website.

John: Perfect, for those who just tuned in. We’re so honored to have with us today, Joan Olivero. She’s a senior at Oyster Bay High School. We’re talking about her great Girl Scout Gold Award project, which you can learn more about at cordclutterconnection.com.

Joan, lessons learned? What did you learn going in? What did you expect? How did it turn out in terms of lessons learned on you? Because basically, you are launching a little mini business here. There was a goal, there was a success. There was a sequence here of making the right connections along the way. What are some of the lessons you learn that you could share with some others out there that want to follow in your footsteps and not only earn awards and do good things for the community; but ultimately make the world a better place and make an impact?

Joan: Throughout this entire project, in this kind of Journey, I’ve figured out that you have to just keep going for it. Even if you don’t get responses, or if someone says no, the worst they can say is no. [crosstalk] You just keep going for it. Just keep pushing ahead. It got really difficult because now, I’m in school again. Because I was doing a lot of this up in the summer, but now I’m in school again. There’s a ton of work. So it’s just delegating the time that I need to focus on it and just pushing towards it.

John: What are your goals? What’s next in the Joan Olivero story? It’s really exciting to be a Senior. Even though I’m 58. I can remember 41 years ago as a senior at my high school. It’s an exciting time in life. Where do you want to go to college? What do you want to study? What’s at the forefront for you? What are you thinking you want to really do with your life or do you know yet?

Joan: Throughout this project, it helped push my idea of what I wanted to do towards more in environmental science, but with a business economics aspect of it. Just because I see what you’re doing and I see what everyone at Best Buy is doing. I had such an excitement seeing how everyone worked and I was like, ”that’s something I’m interested in.” Because growing up, I had no clue what I wanted to do. I was like, ”Oh, I kind of like this. Oh, I kind of like that.” I don’t like anything enough to pursue it. I don’t want to do this, the rest of my life, or I don’t want to learn all about this and then end up being, ”Oh, I don’t like it.” I had been struggling even up until when I started this project with what do I want to do after I graduate high school. This helped me, push me in a direction where it was like, ”Actually you enjoy this. I want to do this as a career.” I want to focus on environmental science, but with a business compliance aspect of it.

John: Where do you want to go to college? Do you have a dream college yet or is it too early to tell?

Joan: My dream college would be Columbia. Because they just recently in the past year to open the Columbia climate school, which focuses on environmental science. Everything pertaining to the environment and climate. I think that’s something that would be amazing to push for.

John: It’s right in your hometown and it’s one of the greatest universities in this great country and probably in the world. I mean, that would be wonderful.

Joan: It will be amazing.

John: That’s just wonderful. Joan, is there anything else you want to say? Before we have to sign off for today? Your story is so inspiring. I’m just so honored to have you on today and honored to be able to help along in your way for you, earning your Girl Scout award. Anything else you want to leave our listeners with before we have to say, goodbye?

Joan: All I would say, was that we need to create a more unified push towards creating more change and sustainable change in our environment. We need to all commit because if it’s me one person doing it. It’s amazing. But there’s no global change being made. I’m making it on a local level. So if there is a bunch of people that commit to helping lessen E-waste. I think that would be an amazing step towards helping our environment. I think that would be one way to push to that is invasion, creating new policies, and taking action.

John: I started this company 17 or 18 years ago. The real truth of the matter Joan is that only 17% of all electronics are being used on the planet today. According to the United Nations, are being responsibly recycled. That means, it’s 83% left out there and I’ve been doing this for 18 years with over a thousand employees in eight locations across the United States. The real goal for me and what brings me joy and happiness and why I wanted to interview you today, is knowing there’s a generation of people like Joan Olivero that are going to get educated. They’re going to take the torch and baton from me and even do bigger and better things, to make the world a better place. I feel really good and I feel at peace that there are just great people like you because that’s where we’re at. Your generation is going to take us from a linear to a circular economy. And if we’re going to go from a linear or circular economy, we have to first, take on the challenge of the fastest-growing solid waste stream. What I didn’t tell you was when I got in the business, E-waste was the fastest-growing solid waste stream in the world. Unfortunately, because of the ubiquity of electronics now, the wearables, the fact that Teslas and other great EV brands are computers on wheels; the fact that now we have Echo, Nest, and the Rings, and all these other ‘Internets of Things’ type things. It’s now the fastest-growing solid waste stream in the world by an order of magnitude of five times. So to have, your generation helping to tackle and responsibly recycle electronic waste is just really promising to me. So I just want to say thank you for your time today. I want to send all of our listeners and viewers again back to cordclutterconnection.com. Support Joan and what she’s doing in Oyster Bay. Bring your cords to our last couple of events. Bring your electronics to wherever she tells you to go. Take it in the Oyster Bay Area. Support her, winning her Girl Scout award project. Thank you, Joan, you’re so inspiring. I wish the world had millions more like you. I hope they get inspired by you, from listening to you today, and thank you for joining us on The Impact Podcast.

Joan: Thank you so much, John.

John: This episode of the impact podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States, with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and impact partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity. Bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners please go to www.closedlooppartners.com