Live from opening night NEHA AEC Kansas City

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Transcript

SPEAKER_09 0:02

It all began in Long Beach, California in 1937. And every year since, for the past 89 years, they've gathered. One year in the West, the next in the east. Public servants, one and all, the front lines defending our public health. They wear many hats in the kitchens of the restaurants we dine at, the pools we swim in, and the schools and daycares where we entrust our children every day and so much more. They do all this and yet are still so often asked, particularly in times of crisis, to do just a little bit more. And they do. Every time, they stand and deliver. And they do it with pride. This year it's Kansas City, world-renowned for their barbecue. That's where we gather in 26 to see old friends and colleagues continue a lifetime dedication to learning, and maybe eat just a little bit of that barbecue. And now it's time. The stage is set. The lights are up for the 2026 Heehaw Annual Education Conference live from Kansas City.

SPEAKER_06 1:15

Now this is the Beyond Data Management Podcast, powered by HF Government.

SPEAKER_12 1:26

Now live from Kansas City.

SPEAKER_09 1:35

Can we just make sure my mic is up there? Welcome. We are live from Knee High AEC 2026 in Kansas City, home of uh Jake Mahomes and quite a few Super Bowl rings. If you know, you know, and I know Summers really happy that we got that shout-out in. We are going live actually for the first time in the history of this channel. Done a lot of live before in my uh career, but never live on this channel. So hopefully everybody out there can hear it all right. And we're going to welcome in our uh first guest into the studio. We have a great lineup for you today here in the mobile studio, and thanks especially to the the hardworking team at HS GovTech, who really has put together a beautiful, not just mobile studio, but right across from where I'm sitting in line I is the uh the main booth where folks can learn more about HS GovTech's products and how we can help digitize your uh your health department as well. But let's go ahead. It wouldn't wouldn't be fitting if we didn't open it up with uh about one year ago, just a little bit more. We got a uh we had a CEO come in and we've had a a really meaningful year of change uh in the past year, and tomorrow you're gonna get to see a lot of it if you're at Niha, and we'll post some clips of it for those of you that aren't here with some really exciting new technology that we're going to be displaying and putting out. So, with that, I'm gonna welcome into the studio Eric Thomas, the CEO, as some of us call him boss, uh of uh HS GovTech. And uh, Eric, welcome to the studio. There you go, your camera's on. So you all bear with us here in the early going here. But Eric, good to see you. When'd you get in?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Uh I got in about midday today. Uh super excited to be here. Obviously, the largest conference in the for us in this space. So lots of people buzzing around, lots of folk buzzing around uh uh our our booth now, and um it's just a lot of good energy having.

SPEAKER_09 3:27

There is, there is. I've already talked to a couple people from a couple states, you've talked to several people and uh a lot of a lot of good ideas already. So you you came in, I think it was May, right? Of uh 20 uh 2025.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yep, yes, right.

SPEAKER_09 3:40

And it has been a really meaningful year of change. So I I know like it's like drinking from a fire hose, right? Right. But as you reflect back on the year, a lot of transformation, especially in the product team and also in our service teams to be able to deliver more effectively. But as as you look at it, how how do you how do you feel about the year that we've had and now setting the table for a couple of really big years ahead?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, uh you know, it's it's been a phenomenal journey. Um I as you stated, I came in in late May of last year, 2025, and walked into an environment uh with a wealth of EH knowledge, experts, you know, in the field. Um an environment that was rooted in a lot of the work that you and you know the other founder uh started, and just you know, a phenomenal platform, uh great energy, and it was just an opportunity to take what had been built at that stage and prepare us for scale in a bigger stage. And that's what we've been doing over the past year. So as you mentioned, we've made significant investments uh in a number of fronts. Uh in our delivery teams, our uh uh professional services team. We've added talent, we've added uh capabilities, we've added tooling, a lot of AI tooling that we're using to help streamline some of our delivery. And basically the results it's giving us is that you know, if I compare where we were year over year, this time last year, we have doubled our capacity, and the number of customers that we're bringing on the platforms is two times what it was a year ago. Um and we're continuing to optimize from a delivery standpoint, you know, trying to find efficiency to make the efficiencies to make the experience even better for some of our customers. I've talked to two customers already this week, and they're in a nightmare deployment right now. Not with us, not with us, but they're in a nightmare deployment. And you know, that that's one of the things that I think we pride ourselves at HSGovTech is ensuring that when customers commit to us and they sign that contract and they sign up to be a partner, that we're true partners, and that's what we're focused on, is giving them the best experience they can get before getting onto the platform, and of course, you know, being able to leverage all the features and stuff that comes to the platform.

SPEAKER_09 5:56

But Beth was just telling me, and folks will meet her later on this evening, that uh state of Montana just released the platform to all the local agencies today. Right. Uh, and that was a lot faster than some of the states from yesteryear that on boarded. So definitely you're seeing those improvements there. 10 thir 10 o'clock tomorrow morning on the stage across folks can't see it, but we're gonna be really rolling out a couple of exciting things. You talked about building uh several disciplines at the same time, right? But the product team is really starting to gel, aren't they? We're gonna put some fun stuff out there.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

We we are. I mean, we you know we the the we hired a new chief product officer that joined us uh right at the at the turn of the year. Another investment that we're making and preparing the company for growth and scale and making sure that you know we're we're bringing um you know sound features and innovation to the table. Um and you know, I guess we'll talk a little bit about it more tomorrow. We'll we'll talk about some of the things we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_09 6:51

AI and actually bringing AI to the inspectors' hands.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah, and and and and not AI in terms of you know, I think a lot of people are starting to try to understand is there there. And I think the approach we've taken by formulate formalizing our internal AI councils, we have a very strong governance around it. Um we've been very intentional with making sure that we're approaching it in a very ethical uh and practical way. Um and you know, a lot of what we're doing is gonna involve you know AI human in the loop, because I don't think you ever really eliminate you know that's the thing. Especially if you're going to write somebody a fine based on what you're what you find. Especially in a space where you require you know EH expertise, right? I don't know that AI has gotten to that point yet.

SPEAKER_09 7:34

I wouldn't trust it with it. But no.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

There's a lot we'll be talking about at 10 10 a.m. tomorrow morning in terms of new features and new capabilities coming to.

SPEAKER_09 7:41

So you're a football guy, right? I am. What's what team do you pull for generally before if they're not knocked out already?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Um you know, I'm a Texas kid, so I follow a lot of college football. I I grew up a big University of Texas fan. Uh grew up a Cowboys fan as a kid. Um I mean, Texas is a football's a religion, so it is Friday Night Lights. Friday Night Lights originated in Texas. I actually grew up in the town where the movie was born from, Odessa, Texas.

SPEAKER_09 8:06

Oh, did you really?

SPEAKER_00 8:08

West Texas is where Friday Night Lights, the whole concept was born from.

SPEAKER_09 8:11

That's awesome. Well, Eric, I know you have a lot of people to see, so I don't want to monopolize your time, but I wanted to start it with you.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Thanks a lot, boss. I appreciate it. I appreciate what you're doing here, man. I I I think a lot of folk look forward to the podcast, man.

SPEAKER_09 8:22

It's really grown, it's humbling. People, a couple people came up before we started and uh we're talking about their favorite episode.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah, it's a unique way to put our environmental EH professionals on the forefront and give them a voice. Yeah. And I think that's what a lot of people appreciate.

SPEAKER_09 8:38

So for them and their stories. So thank you for the support and everything. And we will uh of course we'll be seeing you around in 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. If you're here and you see this, be in the exhibit hall at 10 o'clock. We're gonna blow your mind. So prime time. That's right, prime time in the morning. Eric Thomas, CEO of HS GovTech. We're gonna take a quick break because we're live, so we've got a little bit of a different format. We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be back with an old friend of the show, Bob Custard, from uh formerly a VDH and now in West Virginia. When we come back live from Kansas City, it's the Beyond Data Management Podcast on the road.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

You know, we think that modern flush toilets are a very recent thing in the United States in nineteen forty. Forty-five percent of the population didn't have indoor plumbing.

SPEAKER_09 10:34

It's twenty twenty-six already, in August at that. But we've got an old friend of the show here on the set, Bob Custard. You know, Bob, I we got probably among the top two or three uh viewer emails and feedbacks episodes was from your from your long form that we did together. People really enjoyed it. The story about the septic system, and you went to the country the your uh mentor went to the country church, and also when you said, Oh, you do inspections and permits, how boring. And moved them. Welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Well, thank you. Glad to be here. It's always great to be at Niha AEC. I think this is my 31st AEC.

SPEAKER_09 11:14

So you've been to almost a full third of them, because I think, well, more than that, because I think it's been 89 years now. Yeah. So, so what have you been up to since we talked last time on the show from the studio?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Well, we've been working hard on uh developing the West Virginia Retail Food Safety Collaborative. Uh we now have 29 of the 48 health departments in West Virginia enrolled in the collaborative. That's a that's actually quite a few, because it could be like herding cats, right? Uh some days, but uh they're fun cats. Uh and so we've been uh working hard to help them meet the program standards. Uh having workshops, uh having monthly Zoom meetings. Got a great bunch of people, and actually this year we have 20 environmental health specialists from West Virginia right here at the Niha AEC. That's a lot for West historically, right? That's about 12 percent of our workforce. We have about 160 environmental health specialists in West Virginia. This is a record for us easily. And it's primarily because of the RFFM grant program, because we helped them rate grants that included training, and that training included uh attending the Niha AEC. We had, I think, excellent six people in the self-assessment verification on it course. Wow. And so uh we're real proud of what you're doing.

SPEAKER_09 12:41

They're putting the grants to more use than a lot of states are. That's that may be the biggest contingent with assistance from that grant here.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Uh it may not be the biggest contingent, but maybe in terms of percentage of the workforce, it probably is.

SPEAKER_09 12:57

Yeah, that's that's really wonderful. And so you guys have actually because when you're gonna do a group like that, everybody's busy, right? And so you've got to find a way to get excitement and make them feel like it's worth the time to be involved. And you've done even the little things. I think you brought a prop with you, right? You did. You've you've been making t-shirts. Bob's gonna have an Etsy store here soon.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Well, I don't know about an Etsy store, but we uh created a logo for the uh collaborative and then uh recently had these t-shirts printed so that uh kind of build some excitement about what we're doing. Did you uh are people ordering them? Yeah, we uh I just uh delivered a number of them yesterday and today uh to people who will be here at the conference, you'll see them walking around.

SPEAKER_09 13:45

If you end up with an extra one, I'd I'd be happy to and love to buy one.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

There aren't any extras because they were by subscription, but if we order some more, do let me know. Yeah, just tell me your size.

SPEAKER_09 13:56

Oh, do I have to on live air?

SPEAKER_01 13:59

A large. All right. And there were two of these, right?

SPEAKER_09 14:04

Yeah, that's right. Healthy dose of the air quotes. So uh, in fact, there's a lot of other vendors here, and the uh some folks from VDH came up uh right before we started, and Thermoworks is one of the booths, and the electronic thermometers, and there's uh I think your old stomping grounds of Virginia uh is interested in maybe taking the leap to the digital thermometer that just automatically puts the the uh temperature into the computer system for you. Um what are you looking forward to this year? Are there any of the uh keynotes or sessions that are on your must-attend list, or at this point, is it hard to surprise you with uh much new information?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Oh, there's always something new at a Niha EEC. We've got fabulous speakers that are national experts. I struggle to figure out which sessions to attend, but there's one I've got to attend. You, right? That's right. Jennifer Costlow, Michael, and I will be giving a talk on Thursday morning about the uh collaborative in West Virginia and how we've gone from having just 20, uh just two uh health departments actively working on the standards to now more than 20 in a space of four years.

SPEAKER_09 15:20

A lot of people who are going to want to know what your secret sauce is on that.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Hard work. I'm not sure that's a secret, but that's that's what really it takes is to go out.

SPEAKER_09 15:31

Like out to them, or how do you do it in the virtual world where people aren't always in the office?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Well, we'll we'll go to uh the West Virginia Public Health Association conference and encourage, we really go after the administrators, the guys that control the money, and we say, hey, you could get some grant money here, and what you need to do in terms of reporting is pretty small compared to most grants. This is a great way to improve your food safety program, and it will more than pay for itself, it will help get your staff better trained. And then we go to the environmental health program managers and the sanitarians themselves, follow up with letters and emails and phone calls until they pay attention.

SPEAKER_09 16:19

And if you get the administrator though, it helps, right? Because they're a force multiplier.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Well, they're the one that's going to have to sign the grant application.

SPEAKER_09 16:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

So if you don't have them on board, you you're not going to go very far. But once you get them interested, then uh usually the the environmental health specialists are like, yeah, this sounds great. And uh we've done a good job of marketing that. And then as we've seen more and more success over the last three or four years, then they talk to their colleagues and they go, hey, we're doing this program and we got $39,000, or we got $18,000. And their other administrators go, well, how did you do that exactly? And they go, Well, you need to talk to me. Let me show you. You call Bob. That's right.

SPEAKER_09 17:03

Bob's got the hookup for the grant. But you're right, literally, the uh it's not that much extra data that they have to collect than they already are, right? It's about what you do with it and then how you report it out.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Exactly, and it it really is let's take what we're doing and take it to the next level. We we might be a good food safety program, but let's take it to a level of excellence.

SPEAKER_09 17:29

Be great. That'd be great. So uh I don't know if you're around because I know you're busy, but uh 10 o'clock in the conference hall uh tomorrow morning, there's gonna be a couple of really cool tools using AI that were specifically dialed in for environmental health. Like private models doesn't touch the crazy Reddit world of AI. And uh there could be actually the AI may start providing some ability for like I think it's standard nine, right? Where there's a lot you gotta bundle up and get it in the right format. There's I think there's gonna be some tools coming out soon that'll make it even easier than it kind of already is. Uh if if you have a Bob who tells you what to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Well, I try not to tell them what to do, I just show them this is how you can do it. Here are some models. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Yeah, and we have so many health departments in West Virginia. We have 48 health departments. It's a lot for a state that size for 55 counties, but if you think about it, you spread 160 people over 48 health departments. Average health department, three, four people.

SPEAKER_09 18:37

A lot of yeah, a lot of departments. Everybody's busy.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

And a lot of them actually only one or two sanitarians. And so they have a tremendous amount on them to ask them to write a grant on their own, to do all the policy development on their own. It's just not within the realm of what they can do time-wise. No, so we provide models for them to say, hey, this is plug and play, you don't have to create the wheel.

SPEAKER_09 19:02

That is great. What time's your presentation on uh Thursday, did you say?

SPEAKER_01 19:05

I believe it's nine o'clock.

SPEAKER_09 19:07

Nine o'clock. So if anybody's like spying in on this now, live or later, uh after after you're done with the show tonight, be at that one. And there's probably it's not free money, you're gonna have to work for it, but you might just learn how to bring that hard additional few extra dollars over to your department.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Well, and it's right after breakfast. So get your coffee, have your breakfast, and come hear the presentation. We'll talk a little bit about um some of our colleagues in West Virginia are going through a really difficult time right now because of the flooding.

SPEAKER_09 19:39

That's right, we shouldn't neglect to talk about that. And it's getting some of North Carolina too.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Yeah, I saw that uh Mount Airy and the pilot area gotten hit pretty hard, and uh, you know, even when we're having a conference here, our colleagues are back home working really hard and some of them going through the very difficult time. So uh keeping your thoughts and prayers. This is the kind of conference though that builds the skills that allows them to respond to that kind of uh emergency situation.

SPEAKER_09 20:12

It is in the E in AEC actually is really meaningful for for the Niha conference, isn't it? I know some of them, the sessions are you know, take it or leave it, they're good here. There's a lady speaking of uh, you know, natural disasters. Uh British Columbia and Canada's burning right now. And uh lady from the Canadian Fire Service is speaking. I think she's gonna come on tomorrow. And we get Dr. Dajak and Niha have booked some really first-class speakers that they brought in from around the world, actually.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_09 20:42

Yeah. Well, Bob, I know that you've got lots of people to see. Thank you for taking some time here, old friend of the show. And we'll have you back in the studio sometime and maybe do a deep dive on how people can pattern after what you've done with West Virginia.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Absolutely. Be glad to help anybody out around the country that uh we'll share whatever we've learned.

SPEAKER_09 21:01

Yeah, and it's and it's iterative, right? And they might add something to it, and then you'll take it back and use it. That's how this works. That's why we call it a collaborative. We're all in it together. And I like the teachers, don't forget at large wink uh if you get another order. All right. Bob Custer is a great friend of the show, and appreciate you taking some time to come on here. We're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna stay on topic. Bob told probably one of the most uh shared and talked about clips that we had over the past year on this channel when he told a great story about a um well, we'll let him tell it. So we're gonna go to break here, live from Kansas City, and during the break, you're gonna hear a great story from Bob's long form episode that he did uh just a few months ago. Stay with us, we'll be back live with more from Neha AEC 2026 in Kansas City right after this.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

The door with something I could have never dreamed of. One that was particularly memorable, and this was in Alexandria at the time, we regulated all sorts of personal care places, nail salons and hair salons, and so on. And uh a lady came in one day and came to our front service counter and talked to uh our administrative assistant and said, Well, I'm gonna open a personal grooming establishment in the mall, and uh I'd like an application. And so our administrative assistant was very kind and went and got her an application and said, You know, well, tell me about what you're planning to do. And she says, Oh, well, we're gonna provide Coltland hydrotherapy. Excuse me, what uh that's exactly what my secretary said. She said, What? And the lady said, Yes, Coltland hydrotherapy. Is that a fancy word for an enema? Uh pretty much, yeah. Uh it's uh fancy word for a power wash. And so uh, anyhow, she's talking to her, and the lady explains that yes, this is in the mall. Oh, goodness, uh, right next to the food court. Oh no, come on. And my secretary is a very good listener and very good at listening information from people, and you know, tell me more. She says, Oh yes, and she says, uh well, we don't really regulate that here in Virginia. That's uh and the lady was explaining to her how they were planning to do this, and she says, Oh, yes, we'd like to sell smoothies also. In the same business.

SPEAKER_09 23:57

Like it's uh uh wash and then rehydrate.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Uh this is the point at which uh our administrative assistant came and said, Mr. Custer, do you need to come talk to this? And I did, and we sat down in our little conference room, and she told me how she had bought this machine, which is actually an RX piece of equipment. You're supposed to be a licensed medical provider to use it, and she had bought it on eBay today. And she was gonna add this to the services they provided. They also did tanning and sold nutritional supplements and so on. And she was telling me all about that. I talked to her about backflip prevention, particularly since she's right next to the food court.

SPEAKER_09 24:49

Yeah, backflip prevention in more ways than one.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Well, particularly that we don't want to contaminate the water system and so on. And how she probably needed to talk to the plumbing inspector for the city and uh make a referral for her. I'm not sure how pleased she was about the referral, but wanted to make sure that we protected the water supply. She eventually got around to explaining that she also wanted to sell smoothies. I'm like, I'm assuming this never opened. Um, well, I asked her, I said, why in the world would you want to sell smoothies at a place like this? And you know, sometimes you ask a question, and as soon as you ask it, you realize, boy, that was stepping up. Yeah, why did I say that? And she says, Well, Mr. Custard, after a treatment, uh, my customers feel pretty empty. And at this point, I'm trying really hard to keep a straight face. And so we then talked about the public health controls, uh public health barriers that need to be in place between the smoothie making and providing the colon hydrotherapy. Backsplash. Like there's a lot of things that come to mind. Well, basically, what it came down to was she really needed to have different staff providing the two services.

SPEAKER_09 26:22

Not enough hand washing in the world to trust on a dual purpose of that two, those two roles.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Well, pretty much, and she's actually a very good businesswoman. She realized that you know you only get four or five, six dollars for uh for a smoothie, but these colon hydrotherapy treatments were going for, I don't know, fifty, sixty dollars a crack.

SPEAKER_09 26:50

So it's hard to imagine this idea didn't take off as a national chain, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Well for the Colton Hydrotherapy place in the mall. In the mall, but without the smoothie sales. And uh the mall is no longer it uh is closed, the local hospital system bought the site, and they're building a new hospital there. But you never know what's gonna walk in the door in her own health.

SPEAKER_09 27:34

We are back live in Kansas City, and I I'm just gonna actually step up here real quick and adjust that camera. People keep walking by and bumping our cameras, so I think it's fixed now, Mars. You can check it and see. But uh Van Crest is an old friend of the show and uh just a good friend in general, HS GovTech user, innovating it and pushing it really to a lot more heights than even bigger jurisdictions have, quite honestly. And um, but wow, what a story that is.

SPEAKER_07 28:04

The co that's insane.

SPEAKER_09 28:06

So you said something to me about the um the chocolate smoothie coming before.

SPEAKER_07 28:11

Don't order the chocolate smoothie. And do they have a separate three comp for those dishes?

SPEAKER_09 28:16

Yeah, there's a like like I I'm not surprised they couldn't open with the smoothies because that's a nightmare. Um but Bob Custard, who was on before, we played that clip because that was one of the more popular clips. That story is just so, so wild. Um, that's unheard of. Did something come to your mind? Like, I don't know that there's anything more epic than that one, but have you guys had anything strange before that came as a as a permit uh or weird request of any type? Not really like that. Like that. That's a hard one to follow.

SPEAKER_07 28:46

That's a hard one to follow, yeah. Usually we don't get too many weird ones. Yeah, well, you know, it's a community there, right?

SPEAKER_09 28:54

So you roll up on it when it's an unpermitted facility, and then you gotta backtrack on things, yeah. Actually, so question on that. If is it harder to get on the right side of the law before we shouldn't say this live, but like is it a lot harder to get the permit if you're busted for not having the right permit, or is it about the same?

SPEAKER_07 29:15

It's it's honestly it's about the same, but it's just the the process becomes so um it seems to be a little bit more complicated, unfortunately, because you know, it's what were they doing, why were they doing it, yeah, and you know, trying to figure out what exactly they're doing, what what are their hopes, their dreams, all that kind of stuff. And you know, sometimes they just their facilities just not laid out appropriately. And so you don't want to have to have them change any plumbing and all that other stuff, or sometimes they didn't even pull plumbing permits do the health department to even do that work. So now they've got a problem with the whole their agency. Yeah, well, we we do all the issuing of the permits in Ohio. That's right, you do plumbing. I should know that. Yeah, so we do all the plumbing, so you you know, so there's issues with that. You're like, I can't even approve approve the plumbing that you're using in this facility yet, let alone give you a license to operate your food. So it's literally back up and untangle it. Yeah, it's literally a plate of spaghetti, and then you've got to kind of work through it, you know. And eventually you can, but it it delays their opening, you know, and that's the hard part is they they they want to open, you know, they they're ready to go. They called you last minute, hey, I'm ready for my license. We didn't even know you were trying to open. You know, you should have turned in stuff. We have 30 days to look at your submission once you turn in your plan review by rule of you know law, so it's it's just very difficult of functionality.

SPEAKER_09 30:29

Yeah, and do um your poor folks in your office must get hollered at because these are this is personal for someone, right? Like they're they have a dream of opening a business and then they can take they take out all the frustration of that process on you guys. And that's exactly it.

SPEAKER_07 30:42

They they get frustrated, they oh, you're just a government overreaching, this, that, and the other. And they're like, no, we really want to help you see your dream through. We want you to do it safely, we want to protect the community, we want to do all of those things, but it's it's it becomes almost adversarial for some of them a little bit because they do get, you know, they feel like we're picking on them, and that that is really not the intention at all.

SPEAKER_09 31:00

And you're poor staff, you have a great staff. I know we've talked about this privately before, but I spent some time with your, you know, really your I think your right hand when we were at AFTO. You've inspired not just loyalty to the cause, but a real passion for it. Like you you if she was faking that, she's the best faker ever, and I know she wasn't. No, not at all. How do you how do you get them that way, especially in a small department where there's never enough resources to get them to not only show up and do the job, but be enthusiastic about it. It's a mission for them.

SPEAKER_07 31:32

Yeah, it it it's it's challenging because you know we do, as you mentioned, we have limited resources, but we can be creative, you know, we can we can do things with time, we can do things with with other things that maybe a larger health district can't do because they have just so much that they have to get done. Yeah. And you know, so we can you know show the value, show just how much we appreciate them and the value and just how much they bring to the table, and you know, we can really try to foster their growth as an employee and really try to help raise their bar. And that's to me, is really that's the the best part of being a leader. That's the whole point, is getting everybody, you know, nobody should stay here forever. You know, they should climb, they should do what and it and it doesn't matter if you're just an inspector or if you want a leadership role or you want, you know, you want to see your staff elevate, and that's your job as a leader is to elevate your staff. And if you're not doing that, you're not gonna have loyalty, you're not gonna have staff that are enthusiastic, that want to work. You'll have more turnover too, won't you? And that's it, you're gonna have way much more, way more turnover, and it's it's your job is gonna be harder now because they feel like they've hit a ceiling so much quicker, and they don't understand that you're going to invest in them, but it might be in different ways. And when they see that and they understand that, it it's amazing what your team can do for you when they they really see that you really you care about them, but you're also trying to make sure that they you know they're able to grow.

SPEAKER_09 32:56

Yeah, and you guys deal with some fun politics too. I know everyone does with the state. So, in fairness at the beginning, it'll say that. Um, but you you've played a really constructive role because there's much bigger counties than you have just gotten almost like super adversarial with the state. You why do you want it to look like this? Right. But you've managed to actually be the indispensable player that helped negotiate uh breakthroughs.

SPEAKER_07 33:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 33:20

When in working with your state health department, who has their own needs and what they need, which is different sometimes from the local.

SPEAKER_07 33:27

It can be very wildly different, unfortunately. But you know, ultimately we're in this game together. You know, the public health system, it's local, state, federal, it's that that's how this is.

SPEAKER_09 33:36

The public doesn't see a distinction, do they?

SPEAKER_07 33:38

No, no, they they they just see they see the local people working, they they sometimes forget that the state has a say in this, you know. They they forget that there's the EPA has a role in our a in our jurisdiction. You know, for example, in in our community we just went through some uh issues with Jasmine and MIB in our uh drinking water, and what it was doing as they were treating the water, it was causing some uh chlorine smells to be wildly uh exaggerated. And so it was coming out of the tap. So there was a lot of mistrust with the water quality and all of those things. And you know, we had it in our office. We knew that the water smelled different, it tasted a little bit different, but it was still under parameters and meeting those things, you know. So people are reaching out to us as, hey, you're the water quality people in our community, why aren't you doing anything? I don't have jurisdiction over them. Right, right. It's the EPA, you know, and then they get mad that it's almost like the community, well, you're just kicking the can down the road. No, I literally cannot do anything to enforce this.

SPEAKER_09 34:35

Yeah, if you show up there, they'll probably have a security escort you off, right?

SPEAKER_07 34:39

You show up at the treatment plan. I'm not gonna tell them how to go do their job because I I can't tell them how to do that.

SPEAKER_09 34:43

What caused that though? I like it it because I think is that something that can easily happen? Or I travel a lot and sometimes you'll notice it in a city, it's way stronger. It hits you. And in some cities you don't notice it at all. Is there like variable levels and they get to choose?

SPEAKER_07 34:58

Well, it's it's the it's the organic the organics that basically uh fall out of the water from algae and other other carbon other carbon things. Well, what happened over the winter, it was so cold, all that settled to the bottom, and then as it gets stirred up, and you know, have you ever paid attention to like a fish kill in a pond? Have you ever heard of that happening in a private pond? You know, it's basically the same kind of thing. The oxygen kind of flips, things get mixed up, it gets stirred up, so then as they're pulling that in through the intake and and from the river and trying to treat that water, then those levels then are increased, and then when they are treating it, when it the chlorine hits it, it can cause some of those things to be either really exaggerated one way or another. It can be earthy, musty, it can make the chlorine smell even higher. Interesting. And so unfortunately that that happened, and you know, so it it causes a little bit of mistrust, you know, and that's uh unfortunately in this political age that we're in, there's a lot of mistrust right now, and we're we're trying to build trust in our community with with our community members after you know COVID and even you know before there was some mistrust, you know. So we've we've done a lot to work with the public to really kind of regain their trust. And then when things like that happen, it makes it difficult because they're like, Well, say you're doing this, but now you're not, and I'm like, but I can't. And that's very difficult. You know, we we had a mercury spill, this has been about a year and a half ago now, and it was a fairly large mercury spill, it was probably about three ounces of mercury, so we're talking a significant amount of mercury. Yeah. And so, you know, by the time we go through the process getting the the state EPA involved, and then you know, making a report to the response center and getting the the federal EPA involved, you know, it was within 36 hours that we had the federal EPA in our community cleaning, operating, doing everything that they needed to do to help this family that was living in this home where this spill occurred. That's public health the way that it should work. So we've been it was wonderful to see.

SPEAKER_09 36:55

That that's really fast, especially to get the feds to show up pretty good. Right.

SPEAKER_07 36:58

It was really neat.

SPEAKER_09 36:59

The the mercury got spilled in a home?

SPEAKER_07 37:01

Yeah, it was in a home. It was in a home, and a a child had gotten their hands on it in this little glass vial, and it went.

SPEAKER_09 37:08

Not that it matters, but what were they doing with the glass vial of mercury in their home?

SPEAKER_07 37:11

No idea. Yeah, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_09 37:13

Free country, I guess, right?

SPEAKER_07 37:15

That's it, yeah. And then, you know, the uh our EMA director and then the Ohio EPA, you know, we were talking about it. We had a we finally, due to the budget issues with the federal government, we weren't able to do a a hot wash after because of some of the budgetary budgetary issues. And uh so we were able to bring some of those folks in to do a uh do a training with our local uh fire and other public health departments on how we can handle these better the situation better if it ever happens again. So it was it was fantastic learning opportunity, it really was. But you know, that's they were searching the EPA was like, yeah, you know, no sooner did that happen in your county, we were looking on Facebook, and there was somebody trying to sell just glass jars of mercury on Facebook on marketplace. What are they doing with this mercury? Why are they keeping it? Uh no, we don't want them to do that. Um but we we don't know you know why there's been this strong uptick in uh mercury incidences in our in our state. Uh you know, we had a neighboring county had an issue as well recently, and I think probably a lot of it is just older buildings being rehabbed, uh being worked on, and they're coming across it, and people are underestimating the weight of it. If there's a couple ounces in a jar, you're talking several pounds of mercury. It's very dense, so it's not it's not lightweight, so it might look small, and then when you go to grab it, it slips right out of your hand because you're thinking it's light, and then now you've got micro beads of mercury everywhere.

SPEAKER_09 38:38

So geez, that is terrifying, actually. It really is. Um I think it was Ohio. Some strange stuff has happened in Ohio. I think it's been years now, but that zoo near Zanesville, or that not a zoo, the the guy that had all those animals, and I think he unfortunately, you know, moved himself along and let them all go though before he harmed himself.

SPEAKER_07 39:00

Yeah, and that and that changed a whole bunch of laws on exotics that you can have in Ohio.

SPEAKER_09 39:04

Which I guess no surprise. Like he there were big jungle cats on I-70, I believe. Yeah, something like that. Going through there.

SPEAKER_07 39:11

Yeah, it's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_09 39:13

You guys have had a really um you have continued to do things with your system that anybody could do, but I think everybody gets so busy in their normal day-to-day they forget. You were telling me recently about something you're doing with food waste or embargo, how much food's being thrown out and wasted?

SPEAKER_07 39:30

So last year, so in 2024, we, you know, as a as a team, we were just kind of talking one day, and it we were just kind of amazed at how much food seemed to be getting tossed because of equipment failures or whatever during inspections. And, you know, so after a few of these conversations, like, you know what, I have access to the system. Why am I not adding a field? So I added a field in our inspection uh manager that's basically it's just pounds of food discarded. And you know, it's default set to zero. So if if we don't have any discarded that day, great. Uh but if staff is in a facility and they do discard food, you know, we try to have them estimate roughly about how many pounds of food that they they had to have the operator discard voluntarily. We try not to have to go through the embargo process, all those things. We want them to be willing partners in this. Voluntarily do it exactly. And so and and 95 percent 99% of our time our operators are. We've we've got really good operators in our community. And over the whole course of uh 2025 from January 1 to December 31st of 2025, it was about 56, 100 pounds of food that my inspectors were a part of being discarded because of temperature abuses, date marking issues, or other things. That's a lot of food that we're seeing. What about all the food that we're not seeing, especially at a grocery store or other places that's getting wasted that we that we don't even see or think about? So it it's when you look at that kind of food waste and then you think about, you know, it it it brings out the you know the days of being in the car with my mom and listening to Harry Chapin, you know, and him talking about, you know, we can feed the world over seven times over. Why are people starving? And you know, you look at just that food waste there from just mishandling it. And that's it's astonishing. And so it really makes you want to figure out other opportunities with operators that you know, is there a way that we could set up some kind of of a a food bank with some donations where we could have our licensed facilities do something with it before it dates out where they could make a meal, freeze it, and then we can get it to somebody rather than just discarding the food because there's there's so much food waste. And we're a small community, we're not a huge. Yeah, you look into Columbus, that that number is probably you know, times who knows what. You know, I I don't know what they're inspecting for.

SPEAKER_09 41:47

But if you're at 5,000 plus in Marion, then you're talking fifty thousand plus in bigger jurisdictions.

SPEAKER_07 41:53

We're we're you know, we're sixty-five thousand people in our county, so it's not a very large county. Wow. So but that's still a lot of food, and if you you know, you figure out, you know, if the average meal is, you know, so many pounds of food, you know, you're talking about how many people can you feed? Yeah, you're talking about seventeen hundred, eighteen hundred meals potentially, probably even more really, of of food that could have been served in our community had it been kept safe.

SPEAKER_09 42:15

Are are your operators there open to to something where like just in time before you have to throw it away, you do something?

SPEAKER_07 42:25

But we've never really been able to kind of figure out how that would look. Yeah. Uh there's there's a um I think it's in Cincinnati, Ohio, where there's a a group that is is doing something very similar to this, and it's been very s successful. They they take it to a company, they've been uh packaging meals, freezing them, and then it goes to food banks throughout their community, and then people just walk in, they open that cooler up, and they can take their frozen meal and off they go. That's awesome. And I think that's it, it's ready to go. It's it and it's it was handled safely, and you know, it instead of being thrown into the landfill. Trash. Yeah, that's exactly it.

SPEAKER_09 43:00

Because there's so much of that uh it's actually staggering if you actually sit down and investigate it. In fact, 5,000 just because that's only when an inspector was present observing it being thrown away, right?

SPEAKER_07 43:12

That's so it's probably a fraction of what actually is getting wasted. We're seeing the smallest amount of that. That number is probably tenfold.

SPEAKER_09 43:19

It's really creative, and all you did, right, is add a field into your agent's cloud suite system and track it.

SPEAKER_07 43:24

Yeah, and then that way what we can do then is we can go back and we can pull all of those, which is kind of neat. So, okay, of all of the facilities where we had at least one pound of food that we've accounted for, what was the violation? Did we document that violation? Was it a date marking issue? Was it a temperature issue? What was the problem? And then we can start going, okay, how can we help our operators? What what is the need that they're they're dealing with? And honestly, right now it's cost of equipment repairs and cost of cost of equipment. We're seeing a lot of equipment failures. Uh this summer we've you know, we typically don't get as hot as it is like right here in Kansas right now. It's it's pretty warm here. And um, you know, we we've seen with those heat index days 115, 112, 112. Really hot for a while. And that's that's unusual for us. So we've had, you know, a couple grocery stores had a lot of coolers go down. Um, you know, thankfully they're a little better equipped to be able to handle when things like that happen. Um some of our smaller facilities, they really can't keep up with some of those big things. So we've had to have a couple uh, you know, even there some of the corporate stores, they they're still, you know, they're regional franchises. Yeah. They don't they don't have those resources to to do things. So actually on July 4th, we had an issue with one of our operators, and I was the the guy that just I was like, guys, I'm in town heading to a family reunion, I'll stop and check things out and see what's going on when the complaint came and their coolers were down. They're walk-in freezer and cooler, completely down.

SPEAKER_09 44:46

That's no good.

SPEAKER_07 44:47

And they're trying to use food. I'm like, nah, we're not doing this. So we went through every box, every item, like, okay, here's what you can keep, here's what's gotta go, and then it was like, what's your plan for tomorrow? And if you don't have a plan, you know, there's there's a local guy that has a refrigeration trailer unit. You might want to try to track him down. It's July 4th, I'm sure you're gonna pay a premium for it. Yeah, but you need to do something if you want to be open tomorrow. If you can't do that with him or another refrigerated option, trailer unit, you're not gonna operate tomorrow. And so thankfully they were able to do it, but you know, we're here we are. This has been since July 4th, and we're a month away from that now. And they're just now, uh hopefully this week should be installing their new uh they got their walk-in cooler up and running a couple weeks ago, but their freezer is just shot. And it was original to the building when it was built, and so the the mechanicals are just they're they're done. That's it. So they're supposed to be starting that hopefully this week. So when I get back this week, you know, at the end of the week, it should hopefully be done.

SPEAKER_09 45:45

What's driving that cost? It's occurred to me. Is it just the general inflation?

SPEAKER_07 45:49

Is it I think it's a lot of it's just general inflation inflation. The cost of equipment is just outrageous, it really is.

SPEAKER_09 45:55

It's really hard because it's a hard business to make it in to start with, isn't it? To operate a rescue if you're not it seems like they're either wildly successful or barely hanging on, there's not a ton in the middle.

SPEAKER_07 46:06

No, you don't see much in the middle, unfortunately, or or you see the folks for the first couple years they really struggle and they can't get it figured out and then all of a sudden they have that aha moment. And you know, or as Michelle would say in our our EHLA leadership academy with academy with Nihai, you know, she would they they'd have that lollipop moment, right? And and they some of these operators they do. And sometimes it takes them a couple years of of hard losses to understand like find their oh, you know what? I can't just be a a manager and or an owner and be in the distance and try to take some money off. I have to be more involved.

SPEAKER_09 46:39

Grandma's chili recipe might be that good, correct, but it's not a business in and of itself.

SPEAKER_07 46:44

That's it. And you have to manage it and foster it and do all those things, the same things that you gotta do with your staff, you've got to do it with your people, I've got to do with mine. It's it's all leadership driven, and you don't think about that because you're like, oh, I just this is what I want to do. It's what you want to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 46:56

Yeah. Well, I think so. I a lot of people remember last time you were on a while ago, um, you have a winery. I do. And did I hear right that you brought some of your wine?

SPEAKER_07 47:08

I did for the Leadership Academy, and I decided, you know what, what a we should have a little toast as a collective since we just went through 13 months as a cohort working on our leadership skills. And I thought it would be a fun way to kind of do a little toast with everybody. So I did bring some I did bootleg a few bottles, maybe. I don't know if that's I think if you own it, it's like you can do whatever you want. Do you want to table it here before we head out? It's really entirely up to you. Sure, why not? I brought one. I brought one of our red wines. How's that? So a little bit less. You guys did more than just the toast. Um it's a beautiful label. Well, so the funny story with the label, uh that shamrock and the grapes on it. My mom actually made a birthday card for my grandfather. And that shamrock and the grapes, and there was a wine glass and a stethoscope that went around it. He was a physician by trade.

SPEAKER_09 47:55

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_07 47:56

And he started the vineyard in 71 as a hobby, and then he opened the winery full time in 84 as a hobby business then. And then I took over 26 years ago when I was 19 years old. It's a lot of work. Did you enjoy it? Oh, I you don't do that, you don't do that kind of work if you don't love it.

SPEAKER_09 48:11

So what's y'all's website where you can do it?

SPEAKER_07 48:13

Shamrockvineyard.com.

SPEAKER_09 48:14

Shamrockvineyards.com, and we're gonna have a toast here, and then we'll go to a break, and you guys can, when we do that, meet some of the uh HSGuptech team during that break.

SPEAKER_07 48:24

This is made from a grape called the Norton grape. You'll see it predominantly like Virginia, you'll see it down in um Arkansas, Missouri, that kind of stuff. You'll see it around these. You'll see it around these parts. Um not a ton of it in Ohio, but there is a little bit, and it's lightly a cheers, my friend. Thank you. Cheers.

SPEAKER_09 48:43

Well, that's really good.

SPEAKER_07 48:44

Yeah. No what I'm doing. This is not muscadine wine. That is not muskadine.

SPEAKER_09 48:48

If you go to a winery in North Carolina, it's muskadine, and it's just not my jam. Gotcha. This is really good.

SPEAKER_07 48:53

It's gonna be probably a lot sweeter down your way with the muskadine grapes.

SPEAKER_09 48:56

You know, grandpa's uh crepe juice with a kick.

SPEAKER_07 49:00

Yep, yep, yeah. We we can grow some of the hybrids and that kind of stuff so we can do some different things in our area.

SPEAKER_09 49:05

It's really cool. It's very good. Shamrockvineyards.com, a label that just wasn't generated by the marketing department, it actually has meaning.

SPEAKER_07 49:12

It does, and then if you see the Chateau Shamrock on it instead of Shamrock Vineyard, Grandma was a um French German woman, and grandpa was in the Navy as a physician for years. They lived in Italy for three and a half of those years, and so she had six children with him. They traveled the globe together and did all these things. So when they settled, she was like, you know, where's my heritage? So that's why it's Chateau Shamrock on the label then. So I can talk winery and I can talk public health all day long.

SPEAKER_09 49:41

Go to shamrockvineyards.com and buy some of this. It's actually really, really good. I appreciate it. You know, if it was Muscat 9, I I I would have said, yeah, it's good, but I wouldn't have bragged about it like this. This is really, really good wine. So hey, thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate it. So good for the community in Daz. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Van Crysop from Marion County, Ohio. I'm just really visionary, one of the good ones. And ask his staff if you don't believe me. They really do. They're on a mission and they actually enjoy showing up to work every morning. So it can be done. Even in today's pressures and these budgets, it's leadership. That's it. So we're going to continue here live from Kansas City. We'll go into a break here, get reset with whoever's going to come on next, and we'll uh let you in this break meet some of the great team from HSGat here from Niha AEC 2026 live in Kansas City.

SPEAKER_12 50:29

We'll be back in about two minutes.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

You know, we think that modern flush toilets are a very recent thing. And in the United States in 1940, forty-five percent of the population didn't have indoor plumbing. And yet, in the first century AD, here you have this toilet facility with running water underneath all these seats carrying the waste away.

SPEAKER_09 51:07

So wait, but there was like a running stream underneath these seats here, these little toilet seats. I'm guessing they were skinnier back in the first century because that's a much smaller hole than we at least have.

SPEAKER_01 51:20

Well, uh I'm sure that that might be the case. It occurred to me that uh, well, where'd the water come from? And so I asked them, and they said, well, this is next to where the public baths were. And so they took the great water from the Scholastica bass, their ephesus, and recycled it to basically flush the waste away from uh there at the public toilet facility.

SPEAKER_09 51:55

They were using again the great water from the bathing facility and running it through the toilets.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Exactly. So they were doing great water recycling 2,000 years ago.

SPEAKER_09 52:10

The baker failed, and then the employee that had to serve the bread failed because, well, as you'll see, that mouse got sliced and diced into a lot of pieces. Grand Mitchell from the UK. So tell us what this is. I think it's pretty evident if you look at it for more than five seconds, but the slice part's really artful, isn't it?

SPEAKER_08 52:27

It is. It's still I've actually showed this to a group of students today. Uh really use it. Yeah, it is genuinely, it is my favorite picture of environmental health. And I think what's so what I like about it, and this is how twist has become unfortunately, is not only is the mouse being baked into the loaf of bread, but it it the fat has been sliced as well. And students look at it and go, you photoshopped that. And it's like, no. When you deal with environmental health, you don't need to Photoshop anything.

SPEAKER_09 52:57

The real world is far more interesting than faster than live from Kansas City, the Niha AEC Annual Education Conference 2026. We're still enjoying the wine that the director from the Marion Health Department made, Van Crasop. And um, but we have another this is the fun thing about doing this now for about a year and a half, is we get to see a lot of people that have actually done a full long form in the studio. And so Graham Mitchell from the UK, welcome on, back. Oh, come on. So did you fly over just for this?

SPEAKER_08 53:33

I did, yeah. Um flew Manchester, Atlanta, Atlanta, Kansas City. A long flight. Uh yeah, I think all told it was about sort of 17, 18 hours on the go before I hit the hotel. What airline do you fly out of uh England? Uh well I flew Virgin Atlantic. Oh, nice. Not anymore. Unfortunately, I gotta when I when I checked in, they gave me a letter and said it's not Virgin Atlantic, it's it's kind of another airline.

SPEAKER_09 53:59

Oh, one of those.

SPEAKER_08 54:00

And they were kind of using Virgin Atlantic like a second-hand plane, you know, so nothing quite worked. Um, and then when I got to Atlanta, uh it was Delta, and and that was great, I've got to be honest, it was fine.

SPEAKER_09 54:12

Delta's good. Delta's Charlotte, we're we're stuck on where I'm from in Charlotte on American. Uh I prefer Delta.

SPEAKER_08 54:19

Yeah. The only problem was when I got into Atlanta, I'm queuing up to get on the plane, and suddenly the alarm goes off in the airport, and it's like, there is an emergency in the airport. Please stay, you know, please stay where you are. And I'm thinking, just get me on the plane. Just run on the plane. Let's get out of the way. You don't have to deal with us. We're alright.

SPEAKER_09 54:39

Well, we we came uh out of that in that break. One of the clips that we had was you and the story about the mouse and the bread. One of my it's an all-time favorite.

SPEAKER_08 54:48

Like it is my absolute favorite photograph.

SPEAKER_09 54:51

And then they sliced it, as you pointed out. Like it wasn't just the mouse was in there, no one noticed.

SPEAKER_08 54:55

This is it. I mean, we we show these pictures when we do things with school kids. I mean, they love that kind of thing, and it's like, is it's my favorite picture? It's like, did it have you photoshopped this? Is it real?

SPEAKER_09 55:06

They believed that so we posted that specifically as a short on the channel, and it was like it did really well, but a bunch of comments were that's a lie, that's Photoshop. They were like, no, look at the image and how like you can tell it's like an old Polaroid.

SPEAKER_08 55:22

Yeah, it's it's a genuine photograph.

SPEAKER_09 55:24

Yeah, that's it's wild. So actually, let's have some fun here. Uh Morris over on the controls. I'm gonna show you a clip. There's no audio to it, but we'll be over here on the monitor. This is for real from a McDonald's in Michigan just a couple of weeks ago, and he's wearing gloves, but I'm not sure it's gonna matter. He's he licks those gloves, and then he goes over into the tray with the cooked burgers, and in between, every burger he picks up, he licks his fingers. It's like he's sorting papers or something, but they're burgers.

SPEAKER_08 56:01

Yeah, I mean, obviously he's wearing gloves, so it's perfectly safe. So he still gets credit for the gloves. He still gets credit for the gloves. I mean, again, what one of the muff again, one of my favorite video clips is, and I'm not quite sure if you have them in the States, but Donakebs. So you get this it's if you imagine it's a huge um piece of meat on a retisser. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's a video of someone, there's a donor kebab shop, and someone's outside videoing, and above the sort of grill is a suspended ceiling, and one of the ceiling tiles has come loose. Oh no. And you see a rat come out the ceiling, run down the Donna kebab, pick the meat up from the bottom that's already been sliced, and then runs back up the Donner kebab in. You gotta send me a link to that. That's awesome. I mean, it's gross, but it is yeah.

SPEAKER_09 56:51

For for content-wise, that is a disgusting clip. The rat comes down from the drop ceiling, grabs a bite, and goes back up. Was that taken by a consumer or was that inspector on site for that?

SPEAKER_08 57:04

It was a consumer. It was someone who sort of walked past, was obviously looking to get a donut kebab, had the phone out. Decided against it, I hope. Yeah. I mean, to be honest, don't kebabs in the UK, you you don't eat them when you're sober.

SPEAKER_09 57:16

You know, it's that kind of food. That's Waffle House in the United States South. You go in there at 2 a.m. and you it's good, it's good after-party food.

SPEAKER_08 57:23

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_09 57:25

So you're speaking again this year, right? I think last year it was Green Barriers, you had some really fascinating topics. What did you bring this year?

SPEAKER_08 57:31

Uh this year I think is really interesting because what we're talking about is a bit of research we did around what the public think about environmental health. Really? And I think it's some things we've we've kind of touched on um i today in in in sort of the conference, is you know, we want more people to come into environmental health, we want to increase the visibility of it. In order to do that, how do we know we're doing the right thing? How are we sending the right message out? Well, we don't know that because we're looking at it through the lens of professionals, and this is what we think. What we need to do is take a step back.

SPEAKER_09 58:07

You're not preaching to the converted yet.

SPEAKER_08 58:09

Exactly. So, what what do the public know about us? Um, and I think you know it's a uh it's it's a short presentation, only 20 minutes or so, uh Tuesday afternoon. But I think one of the key headlines is when we look at the word environmental health, the public don't see it as as a phrase environmental health. They split it in half. So half the people think it's all about environment.

SPEAKER_09 58:31

They think it's like green piece or something.

SPEAKER_08 58:33

Exactly, and then the other half think it's all about health, making people better.

SPEAKER_09 58:36

That's a great point. Actually, when you bifurcate it, you're gonna be wrong no matter which word you key on. Exactly. But is the better word? Like, I think sanitarian, I think in this modern culture, they probably don't know what that means either. How do you package it?

SPEAKER_08 58:49

I uh it is difficult because I don't think there is a single word, and I know people talk about sanitarians and that kind of thing. I think you're right, it's an old-fashioned word to me. Uh has other connotations. I think what we need to do as a profession is to teach people that when you look at that phrase environmental health, you've got to look at its entirety. Yeah, you you look at it as a single phrase, don't break it up, because that's what the public are doing.

SPEAKER_09 59:13

Is it is there room for like departments to be a little bit more opportunistic with the media? Because again, if you're not getting things online or from the media, that that's where the the kids, I feel like every older person since time immemorium, this new generation, they stink. But how it feels like if you don't catch them on TikTok, then you're missing a big chunk.

SPEAKER_08 59:37

Again, one of the things we asked as part of the research is how do we promote environmental health? Because we've all got fixed ideas. And again, one of the interesting things that came out is campaigns. Now, as a professional, it's really easy. Campaigns. We'll we'll put a campaign together, we'll do this. When you look at the response from the public, that's not what they want. They want more environmental health in the news, they want you to engage with the public. So our fixed idea that let's have a campaign, let's spend money doing leaflets, let's do posters, let's do that kind of thing. The public are saying, no, that's not how you're gonna reach us. Yeah, you reach us by social media, you reach by getting us in the news, get environmental health stories in the news. That's what touches us, that's what makes us know what environmental health is about. And again, it's one of those things that having taken that sort of opposite view, it kind of shows a professional lens, but maybe isn't right. Because it's natural for us to go to campaigns.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:39

Yeah, you've got to capture the imagination. And so I I agree with what you just said because I've been noodling with a separate from this channel show that just focuses on the violations and the things that inspectors see. Your mouse and the bread is a like gold medal example, but that captures attention. And what's interesting is for most of the last 20 years, departments have gotten squeamish. If the media, you know, next up at 11 rats in a restaurant, they get squeamish about it because they're like, well, that'll make the restaurant operator unhappy. And granted, it probably does, but if your future inspectors are watching clips online, nothing gets their attention more than say, Oh, that's what an inspector does. It saves us from these situations, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:01:25

Yeah. I was talking to a colleague just before I came out and we were talking about how do we promote courses, how do we promote environmental health, and he says, We're doing it wrong because what we focus on is is kind of the detail, you know, as an inspector. This is what you can do, it's a great career, you make a difference, you can do this, you can do this, yeah, all that kind of thing. And he said, What we should do is sell environmental health like you sell cars on television. Yeah, and you don't sell cars by saying, Oh look, it's got two airbags, oh look, it's got seven cup holders. What you sell cars on on television is this is the aspiration.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:00

Yeah, yeah, you're selling them a an anticipated lifestyle, right? Uptick, because the car is what made those beautiful models so happy.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:08

Exactly. You're selling a um an SUV, it's the successful family. You're selling a compact car, it's the young people all enjoying themselves going to the beach for a barbecue. And and we don't sell environmental health that way. We don't sell the aspiration, we don't sell the emotion, we sell the detail. And and that's a problem. You know, we we need to start to sell the emotion, which we're not really good at.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:30

No, because as scientists, scientists are are by default taught to askew emotion, right? Because emotion messes up your results.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:39

Yeah, and again, in the the keynote today, you talked about disinformation. And again, uh as in a profession, we we sort of say we we deal with disinformation with facts. Well, that's great. But but people react to emotion, and we don't as from a public or environmental health point of view, we've never adopted that emotional point of view.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:00

Yeah, and in fact, they've gotten a little shy when an emotional point of view is presented.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:05

Yeah, it's kind of or we're as you say, we're scientists, we're we're we're empirical in what we do. We we're gonna go with the straight and narrow. And of course the problem is that you've got people with this disinformation, they will throw stuff out, and if it's wrong, people don't remember that.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:21

It is here today, gone tomorrow, isn't it?

SPEAKER_08 1:03:23

They just move on to the next thing. Yeah, but the the problem is a professional if you give out facts and you're wrong, people always remember that.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:31

That's that's that's true. That's true. And and and if you had inspectors more uh cast in that, this is a crazy job. You won't believe what I saw today. That's gonna get the kids.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:43

It is, it it and I think within the profession, I think there's three types of people there's there's people who are career changers, and again, we see this a lot at university, people who work in catering and want to change their job. We have people who fell into environmental health who never really set out to do it, and I'm one of them, and just fell into it. What we need as a profession to keep us going is those kids at 17, 18 make us the first choice.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:09

They make a decision there and they follow it all the way through to being in the profession.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:13

Yeah, and that's what we need to capture. Um now, how we do that through social media, you know. I'm no social media expert, I still think TikTok, you know, what's that? You know, I'm not a fan myself, but that there's a lot of people there. It's a way of getting the message out, it's very short, it's very succinct. When you get it right, it's brilliant, it reaches a whole range of people.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:34

And there's a lot of people, yourself included, but there's a lot of dynamic people working in these departments that they would, on a personality visceral level, connect with those young people, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:46

Yeah, uh I always think that when we try and promote it, that it's the three T's in a way. We we have to have the right teller of the story. Because there are you know people working for counties who are really experienced but are no good in front of an audience. You know, you you've gotta be able to sort of um tell the story. It's gotta be tacky, it's gotta stick. It's it's gotta stick with people.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:12

It needs to be to the point that they want to hit the share button to have all their friends watch what they just watch because that's how blown away they are, or like outraged. There's all kinds of emotions you can go for, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:23

But it is and it is I I think you know, it is that aspiration. This is what an EHP does, this is what the profession is. How do we get that? How do we sell that emotion? What are the characteristics of an EHP? You know, we set it to dramatic music, you know, the EHP walking down the streets or whatever.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:41

Well, I mean, look at the show. So this is a tried and true formula with firefighters and cops. Yeah, like they're you turn on any network channel still, and it's this fire, you know, fire FD, whatever, and PD. That's not really what police face every day. It's a dramatized version, but it Does get people saying, I want to be a cop.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:03

Yeah. And we have a similar thing in the UK, and particularly with the ambulance service, paramedics. Really? Because we have these sort of programs and the paramedics go out and they solve all sorts of problems. You know, and they're really dynamic and they're into burning buildings and all that kind of thing. Most of the calls are sitting with elderly people for three or four hours saying, You're alright, you've had a fall. We'll make you a cup of tea. Do you want to go to the hospital? No, you don't. It's okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:31

A lot of ingrown toenail and et cetera calls that aren't that exciting, but that doesn't make good television.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:36

It doesn't make good television.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:37

Well, you know what? Maybe we should go shoot a pilot on the other side of the pond with you for a new show, which is just following health inspectors around.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:46

Well, we have done in the UK. There'd been a couple of programs. One was called A Life of Grime. That's a good name. And it was great. And it was following sort of EHPs doing different things. And it was interesting because there was a bit of kickback from the environmental health community saying, oh, this doesn't portray us, you know, this isn't what it's like. We're not sure they're comfortable with that portrayal. Yeah. But it, you know, as they say, all publicity is good publicity. Um that's right. As long as they spell your name right, it's good. This is true. And particularly when you spell Graham, which is, you know, we're never gonna get right.

SPEAKER_09 1:07:20

It's a lot of ways to do it. So what time is your session? Uh that's a fascinating one. I hope I don't have a conflict and can go over there for it. What are you speaking?

SPEAKER_08 1:07:27

Uh I'm on Tuesday, half past two, till ten to three.

SPEAKER_09 1:07:31

2.30 on Tuesday. I should be able to sneak over there. I speak at 10, and that leaves me time to like calm down and get over there. So we will have you back in the studio if you'd like to talk about because you've got a couple other things I know you'd like to talk about that would be good, longer form.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:46

Oh, absolutely. I mean, the aim is, I mean, I was listening to the podcast with Dave Dijack, and he said he's he's been on the most times. He's been on three times. It's like, that is the game. Gotta be Dave.

SPEAKER_09 1:07:55

You want to get on, so we got two to get you to tie Dr. Dijack. Yeah. We can help you do that.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:00

Not a problem.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:00

Graham Mitchell from the UK. You flew about 18 hours total to come do uh, you know, a half-hour presentation. Yeah. That's dedication. It's good to see you, my friend. Cheers.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:10

Thanks a lot, Cameron.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:11

Thank you. All right, and we will take a quick break here. We're gonna do uh a couple of uh spots where you'll get to meet this time the actual uh folks from HSGov Tech that help serve departments every day. And after that, we'll be back with a lot more from Kansas City Niha AEC 2026.

SPEAKER_12 1:08:26

We'll be back in a couple minutes.

SPEAKER_11 1:08:32

This is Laura Trikat. I am the PDR director at HS. I am from Columbus, Ohio, and a fun fact about me is a little bit happening.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:53

Hi Hi, my name is Hollyani Wade.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:55

I am a development here at Hightech. Originally I'm from Baltimore, Illinois and now I live in Florida Ravens. Uh fun fact about me is I guitar and I write in every single day.

SPEAKER_14 1:10:16

I am from Chicago, Illinois. And fun fact about me has the uh I wear it.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:29

Um I was with my wife, and she was if he could sit in my lap and not judge it. And I was and but being the uh, you know, the the salesman that I am, I was like, well, that depends. You can do that if that means she gets 20% off the cost of this car. This guy works for the car dealership? He was oh yeah, he was a salesman. I'm not joking, he got up, he said, let me see what I can do, and he walked out of the room. Needless to say, at the end, he did not wind up sitting in my lap. He got a discount, but not 20%. I tried. I tried.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:16

He really, really wanted to sit in your lap now.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:18

Oh, really, really bad.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:21

Screw worms! Google it, okay? Uh screw worms, we eradicated from this country decades ago. Decades ago. And for for a bunch of different reasons, they're making their way back up north through Mexico en route to the United States. If my friends from the USDA are listening in right now, their blood is starting to boil because what they'll say is there's no screw worms in the US, but they are clearly on their way back. What this will mean to the agribusiness, uh, what this will mean to pet owners, uh, these are these flies uh lay their eggs, and then their larva hatch in any open wounds. So if if you uh if you take one of your bovine, your cow, and you uh you put a tag in their ear and it creates a little cut there, uh a screw worm fly can deposit an egg, and then those larvae begin to eat away at the flesh of that animal.

SPEAKER_12 1:13:22

And that's an example.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:35

Alright, we are back in Kansas City here, and um that clip got there's a little issue with that clip there, but the uh Dark Lord himself, Dr. David.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:44

Oh my god, I'm never gonna live this down now, Cameron. Uh please.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:49

Thank you for coming and playing the anchor. This will be our last segment on the live one for tonight. And um What a privilege to be here, and thank you for doing this. Happy to, and we just had Graham on right before you, who's uh be talking, I think, on uh tomorrow about marketing environmental health for the next generation of inspectors.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:07

So you're lucky to get him.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:08

You know, he came in from Europe and He flew 18 hours for like a half hour presentation. Wow. Yeah, that's commitment.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:15

So speaking of commitment, we're right around 1,300 attendees. Seriously?

SPEAKER_09 1:14:19

Yeah, so I'm you had a surge of late breaking attendees deciding to be here at least.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:25

So I I need to remind myself that every year it's this way.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:29

And so you're stressing up.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:30

I'm stressing right up to the last second, right? This is my job, you know, Mr. Cortisol.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:36

I was actually chatting with um, and I am now blanking on his name, but the gentleman who's sort of running all of this here uh to for you all this year.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:45

Uh Lar our president, Larry Ramden?

SPEAKER_09 1:14:48

Or uh no, the gentleman who's uh here, Sony's usually in that role. Um, Nick Boney. Nick Nick, yes, I it's embarrassing, Nick. I apologize. Um he was saying that there's a big focus on like getting the word out to get more folks to be members and to know, especially training programs. Nina has a huge plate of really exciting things that you've built up that people can take advantage of, don't they?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:12

Uh sir, we we're on a roll right now, if I can say professionally. Uh we are anticipating what environmental health practitioners may need. We're anticipat anticipating that in advance and then preparing the education for adults so that when that moment comes just in time, we can roll out that education and training so that folks don't need to worry about, you know, will I have access on what I need to be effective locally.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:41

And it's all online based, right? Or a lot of it, or you're doing most of it.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:45

Most of it. I think we're gonna be slowly working back to some face-to-face training. We're gonna be in Illinois doing leadership training, for example. We'll be hosting the Inform conference in Savannah, I think somewhere out on the West Coast. So there's face-to-face educational programming gonna be occurring from I think this autumn forward.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:06

That's excellent. And we, you know, please feel free to keep us uh posted and we're happy to promote out on this channel for for the folks that are watching. Probably most of them already know. Um, but sometimes it's reinforcement, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:20

Over and over until you there's so many things grabbing for our attention today. We're still trying to figure out the Goldilocks solution. That is, how often do you remind someone about a program that they may be interested in uh before they start to get fatigued on the repeated advertisements? What's a reminder and what's spam? Yeah, bingo. Bingo. And so I I don't know that we have the perfect solution to that, but we are, I'm letting everyone know, we're hypersensitive not to over-inundate people. You're aware of it. Oh, very, very much so. Like, what do they need to know when they need to know it to be able to take advantage of the programming we provide?

SPEAKER_09 1:17:00

Bob Custer was on earlier and saying that, like, I think he was saying it's like 15% of the West Virginia EH workforce is here as a result of the retail food grants that you that Niha's administering through the FDA.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:14

So listen, uh Bob has been phenomenal with his ability to coalesce the environmental health profession in West Virginia in a way that I think folks should study. He's able to secure the resources, he's able to garner the decisions, and frankly, he was able to get, I think, over 20 practitioners to Kansas City from West Virginia. God love them, and I'm really proud of Bob and the entire team from West Virginia.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:43

Bob's at Dynamo. And he was talking about how he got the administrators educated because normally when somebody comes to them and says, hey, we have a grant, they roll their eyes because they're like, okay, great, how much of a reporting obligation are you going to put on me? And he sold them on the fact because it's really not that much.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:58

So listen, we are very sensitive to what it takes to apply for the resources that we have, and then the reporting requirements associated with it. We are with discipline focused on making it as simple as possible so that folks can get the resources they need, they can attend the Neehawk conference, and then the close-out reporting process is like clicking a few buttons and hopefully that's it.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:27

As opposed to like submitting spreadsheets and all this other stuff. It hasn't always been that easy with the uh FDA uh retail grants. You all really streamlined it.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:34

We have really we consider the the end customer. That is, small local environmental health programs don't have the resources to apply for NIH style grants. They don't have the time, they don't have the expertise, oftentimes they don't have the support. And we're we're targeting our efforts, our architecture, so that it makes it easy for them.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:02

Because and not again, not uh everybody tried their best, but some of the previous administrators of the grant didn't make it pedestrian and easy enough for a busy. You gotta put yourself in their shoes. They're already kind of overworked with not enough staff, right? Right. One more reporting requirement that takes forever to figure out is in fact I know this for a fact because there was um uh somebody in Ohio a couple years ago when you guys first took it over. I said, You should look at what Nia's going. And literally just the knee-jerk reaction from the administrator there was, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The last thing I need is another reporting obligation, and if I mess it up, I have to do a refund. Right. And so, like, was ready to dismiss it out of hand from previous experience.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:43

I was in Minnesota, in Minneapolis, a couple of years ago, and evidently the administrator who saw how simple it was to close out an annual report for the RFFM said he couldn't believe it. He to he told my colleague who was on the board at the time, or the Niha board, that he couldn't believe how easy it was to close out an annual report. There must be a cat somewhere he was missing. Exactly, and that that is the aim. Our customer is our health departments that are stretched like saran wrap, and we have them in mind.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:19

Stretch like saran wrap, that's really good. Because it's just true, especially the smaller ones.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:24

Listen, we are obsessed with uh uh customer satisfaction. When somebody emails us or calls our helpline, we measure in minutes how quick we get back with them, and we measure in minutes time to closure. And we look at that data, and if there's any outliers, yours truly investigates that. So we we are obsessed with customer service.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:55

That those are metrics that you would expect to find in a support organization in the private sector, measuring that, or used to be yesterday the drive first. I don't think they pay attention to those clocks of how long you've been waiting anymore, but that's wow. You literally are adjudicating the ones that aren't, or you go look at the data.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:12

So I look at this quarterly, we look at patterns. The aim is to drive down the number of questions to the lowest possible number in the real world. Now that's that's that denominator is really important. No place is perfect, niha's not perfect, but what is an acceptable number of questions for an issue? And if I'm like, why are so many people having login problems? But now we have the data and we make data-driven decisions and we're obsessed with customer service. We we just listen, we can't please everybody, but it's not because we're not interested. It's we we are on it.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:50

You'll get the 80%, then then you've got you some people actually don't really want to be satisfied. That not pointing to anybody particular, but you can get the vast majority.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:59

Uh listen, our heart is I I promise you, our heart, our staff's heart, I and I hope that you can feel that here on the conference.

SPEAKER_13 1:22:06

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:06

Everyone is passionate about providing service to this profession. They know how important it is to the health safety and economy of the country.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:14

And uh it was actually even um apparent even as the vendors are setting up booths today. Your people were everywhere. Need anything like really good good service? And we're just the vendors, we're not actually environmental health specialists.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:28

Listen, we take nothing for granted. Uh, and it's a privilege to be doing the work that that we do. I pinch myself literally every day like, am I being paid to do something I'm passionate for? Yeah, and uh I think you you know me by by now, and I think this is really part and parcel of our genetic makeup at Niho.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:48

No, it really is, and that's why it's been such a pleasure to work with you guys uh in your tenure because I get I geek out about it. And like I I want I I just want the people of the field to be able to have better tools, better experience, more information. Right. Because it's a hard job.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:07

So so I believe that it's a really hard job. And I believe that most of our constituents don't get the respect and appreciation that they deserve locally. I mean, that they're helping society live longer, healthier, more enjoyable lives. And if they don't get the respect there, they can certainly anticipate it here. And this is this week in Kansas City, we're here with our tribe. I'm hoping each and every member of our uh community leaves their troubles behind for a few days and embraces the camaraderie and the fellowship of being around other environmental health professions.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:47

That's the importance of coming here, right? Is you realize you're not alone, that there's people in all of the 50 states and beyond that deal with the same problems every day when they get up that they're dealing with. And sometimes just knowing that you're not alone is actually a helpful thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:05

So I think all of us in humanity are designed to be connected. And if you're working in a small rural or frontier area, sometimes you may not feel connected with the with the larger profession. And certainly Zoom and Teams, and I'm I have no disrespect for them, that's not the same as being in person.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:25

It's not a replacement, is it?

SPEAKER_05 1:24:26

It's not like looking face to face as we are here. This is much better than I mean, I enjoy talking to you through Zoom from my office.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:32

It's way better this way.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:33

Yeah, man. It's uh I I I feel the energy and feed off your energy and your professionalism, and that's what I'm hoping everybody here.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:40

Yeah, it it's almost it's it's very uh it's not three-dimensional when you're doing it through Zoom.

unknown 1:24:46

Right.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:46

You do really well, but you also really geek out about it, right? So you that enthusiasm, I think, is clear even on a Zoom call.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:54

Well, you're a professional, so you you pull that out of people. I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:58

We try, but it helps it helps have people that actually are true believers. Yeah, especially for this stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:04

And you have tremendous guests too. I don't know how you do it, but uh as I look through the catalog of people you've interviewed, it's really impressive.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:12

Thank you. And hopefully we'll be able to keep that up. It's uh we live on the goodwill of those guests to be willing to come on. And there's you know, I the bet when we started this was that you know what I think the watch around the country. And we're up now to over across all platforms, 40,000 uh per episode. And what? Yeah, yeah. If you go look at your numbers on YouTube alone, you blow us out. Is that right? That's true, yeah. I can send you numbers.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:45

Are you talking 40,000?

SPEAKER_09 1:25:46

Like 40,000 human beings, yeah. Wow. I had no idea. And and I certainly couldn't vouch to you that every single one of them is from the profession, but a lot of them are. Because again, people want to connect, they want to hear other people's stories. Right. It makes them feel okay, maybe I'm actually shooting par here. Because if this guy that I see speak at conferences is saying that they struggle with this data, it's a there's a cathartic value to that.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:14

I listen, as a graduate student, I love to talk to other graduate students. When I started this profession, I was an industrial hygienist. I love to talk with other industrial hygienists, so I get it. We all want to be part of a tribe. This is our tribe here this week, and I think your podcast has, to your credit, has kind of touched a nerve where folks feel like they are part of a tribe now. So kudos to you for cultivating that.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:42

Virtual water cooler, thank you. And we'll we're gonna keep trying to do better.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:45

You mean coffee urn, not coffee urn, yeah, the coffee urn for this group. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:49

No, and and thank you for the help you've been. I know you you've helped us with, hey, check this out. If I'm gonna talk to this person, I'd really, really thank you. Because it takes everything to build these things from scratch.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:01

But hey, we're all in this together. I mean, if you're successful, I'm successful.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:05

Yeah, in fact, tomorrow at the stage, I love that you guys do the demonstrations there. We're gonna do some things that are actually fully AI based, but with the inspector at the cementer to make the decision. Ooh. What time are you doing that? 10 a.m. tomorrow on the either.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:22

I think that it's that you doing the I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:24

Yes, yeah, I'll be out there doing it. And there's just uh because as I traveled around at some AI workshops with uh with with several groups, and they were like, listen, there's so many terms. We need to just tell us what we can turn on and utilize the AI.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:42

Right.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:43

And so we're gonna try to do that with a couple of things that and I and I I tell everyone that asks no, this is not so you can have less staff. Environmental health does not get the staff they need and deserve. And so if we use that as the baseline, then What AI will do is actually allow them to maybe do more of the hard stuff that ends up in a backlog because they're they're having to chase everything right now.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:10

So this is the potential for, in my opinion, of AI for environmental health. That is, it leverages the individual. It's not going to replace the individual. I do not sit in the camp that AI is going to like change employment all throughout public health. It's untrue.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:30

No, it is untrue because AI must have an a subject matter expert making the final decision. But it can log through a lot of things where if they have to go through data for two hours, it can present them a summary and they're like, okay, now I can do the hard part.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:47

So that is the beauty, in my opinion, of AI is the statistical analyses, the summary statement. It is crazy good. I did a series of interviews with the private sector over the winter and early spring. I was able to take my manual notes, drop them into AI, and have them summarize like what were the trends with in these conversations. And it was really extraordinarily helpful. That would have taken me days of labor to do, and it was done in five minutes. Yeah, that's the thing. Dave tells you what the outcome means, right? So that that Dave also is essential for collecting the information.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:35

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:36

So those individuals are not going to log in and fill out a survey. That's right. But they're going to answer the phone if I call them. That's the difference. So there you go. And I think we often forget that in our in our rush to get attention or something. Oh, these jobs are going to be displaced. I don't believe it. I mean, will there be changes? Of course. There's always been changes, but I think AI will help leverage us.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:00

It will, and I I won't, I'm not interested in being a part of anything that's going to displace them because the way I see it. I've actually used to ask them at keynotes over the last couple of years, how many of you have positions in your budget for like an FTE, but there's no human in the chair. It's on paper, and every hand goes up. And if you ask how many uh that's been that way for more than one fiscal year, still a good number of hands are up. And it's like, okay, AI is going to help you replace the people you're never going to probably have.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:31

Huh. So I would like to know what is driving that. Because you just surprised me. I know of some jurisdictions that keep open positions in case of budget cuts. Yeah, there's that. Right, right. So it that's almost like practicing prevention.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:47

And then there's some where they'll have them and they can't get enough applicants to really get the person that they want. So that's a whole different problem, right? Which is recruitment.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:57

Well, for the record, we have, I believe, over 150 students registered this year. Wow. That's really good. That is the most, I think, in my watch here over the last 11 years. I I am just pleased. And if any of them are listening in, thank you for listening in to that.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:16

We had a couple of the interns or the Nihon intern programs on last year that were here. Really smart kids.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:24

I shouldn't call them kids, they're graduate students in most cases.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:26

So did you hear what Michael Osterholm said earlier? He said if I was 20 years younger and they were 20, his students were 20 years older, he would be reporting to them, right? This is the way I I think about we have some uh uh P happers and some interns.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:41

These these kids are bright.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:43

They're sharp, yeah. They're way better than that.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:45

And that's why you have to embrace technology as a health department, because if you try to recruit, these sharp people are used to some AI analytical component, they're used to doing things on their phone.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:56

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:57

And if you're only if God forbid you're doing it on paper still, but if even if you're just stuck on a tablet or a laptop, that's a that is a deterrent for some of the smartest talent that's analyzing where they want to go give their labor.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:11

Well, that's part of the I think chemistry in the modern workplace. That is how do you get the best out of each of the five generations that are that are currently there? How do you get you know the same time? At the same time, and having this generate results where you get the most juice from the squeeze from it in aggregate. Uh they have to ideally work together. And if you can get that system, if if the machinery is lubricated the right way, it's a beautiful thing. And the individuals doing the work feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves. They are learning from their elders, uh, the older folks like me are learning from the younger folks on technology and you know the effective use of AI and other things. It's uh that is magic. That is human magic when it happens.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:02

And that's when the this whole profession will level up for sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:08

It's in the process of doing it. I think it's leveling up now. I do too. I listen, of course, it's these are difficult times. It's a fragile political environment, it's a fragile uh administrative environment, it's a fragile environment overall. It's also impregnated with uncertainty, and this kind of thing is not healthy for most of us every day. It is really stressful, but I bet you pull together both within an organization and organizations collaborating with uh with each other, like Nihon and HS GovTech. I think this is a this is good for the professional.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:43

We can get over the hump.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:44

We really I really do believe that.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:46

Listen, you're almost at the crest of it now already.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:50

You and I need to be in the business of hope. And and not willy-nilly Disneyland hope, but hope predicated on reality. Our job is to create the conditions under which individuals say we can do this.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:04

And then jump in.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:05

And jump in and do it. And so I that's our charge.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:08

Speaking of fragile, I know I'd be terrible if I didn't let you go without saying you have a really interesting session that you're gonna leave this year. Uh-huh. And I I sent you an article because just literally, like three days ago, there were cyber attacks on water treatment facilities. So what are you gonna be speaking about here in in your your presentation?

SPEAKER_05 1:34:28

So to be truthful, I'm just doing the introduction. So the session itself was conceived by me. The abstract that got accepted was written by me. But we have But you have to write an abstract yourself? Sir, I'm not sure. Look, it had most like everybody else. By the way, I had an abstract rejected. No way, yes, sir. And I didn't do anything about it. I'm like uh it got a bad career move for rejected. But but the name was dark out. I mean, so it was true blind, and it was truly blind, and I did not appeal to it. I'm like, you know, I'm just like everybody. I want everyone to know I played the same way you go through the same gates all the rest of us do. Right, but this cyber uh session has got someone from FEMA who is going to be it's their cybersecurity someone who's an REHS in FEMA. In FEMA, who's who's a cyber expert, and we've got a uh chief technical officer coming from a private cybersecurity firm, and the two of them are gonna tag team. I'm just gonna introduce it and get it out of the way. That's exciting. I mean it's a scary topic, but that's but the timing of this. So I wrote that abstract a year ago. A year ago, and last week, of course, in Minnesota, that there was a breach. Water treatment facilities are getting hit. That we know of, right? Some of the stuff isn't discussed publicly.

SPEAKER_09 1:35:51

And if you're a private system, you can understand why they don't want it to be national news too, right? Well, I you know the world is changing quickly, but I'm glad our annual conference has these emerging issues like cybersecurity and uh and the wildfire, the lady from Canada, like sadly, like Canada is really burning right now.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:13

So she is going to, I believe, I she hasn't sent me her presentation, but it's the public health implications of wildfire. It's not like ain't it bad. It's like here's what you need to think about with all that smoke and stuff in the city. All the smoke in the air. I mean, it it is truly awful. That is wildfire smoke is designed for public health impact, uh negative public health impact. I mean, it's so uh don't miss that. I mean, don't miss any of it. But yeah, that one doesn't matter. I wish I could clone myself and attend everything. I mean, it's there's so much going on.

SPEAKER_09 1:36:44

The problem is you're one of one. I wish I could be at all of them too. Are you uh so when is the one on the emerging threats and like uh malware and things in our water systems?

SPEAKER_05 1:36:54

Uh so the cybersecurity one is tomorrow at 3 30.

SPEAKER_09 1:36:57

Tomorrow at 3 30. I can be there. Um that's that one's circled on my hand. And uh and then the the wildfire one. Actually, a lot of people make it supply.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:04

I think that's Wednesday.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:05

I think it's Wednesday day after there's no conflict on that. Well, I know we have a reception to get to for outgoing President Larry Ramden, but thank you for everything you do. Like this is Niha is really making a difference, and you're driving it.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:19

Uh I'm not driving it, I'm a passenger, and you know that's true. Uh, but thank you. And uh thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:24

Thank you, Dr. Dijak. I'll see you around the conference. Enjoy your week. Thanks, you too.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:27

Bye.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:28

All right, and we will end there on that note here from Kansas City. Special thanks to Dr. Dijak for taking a little extra time with us. We're gonna be late to our next thing. But uh I hope all of you all, if you're watching it either live or what probably a lot of you will do, is watch it on replay on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts in the future. Hope you've enjoyed a taste of the Niha conference here and the different guests that we have in. If you are here and you watch any part of it, you're gonna want to be a part of these different sessions that you've heard about here tonight. And it's been an honor to have uh sit here and chat with all of these guests. We will also on this channel uh be recording recorded segments with other guests and speakers in the next couple of days. And so stay tuned to the Beyond Data Management Podcast channel. Uh in fact, I've got to do the shameless plug. If you have not yet, hit that bell, smash that bell, subscribe. We just crossed the threshold of subscribers right before we came to this conference. And so if you hit that subscribe button, then it'll just alert you every time we drop the content. We'll have a special Niha EC 2026 playlist that will post all of these different conversations we have with the leading lights and uh experts that are speaking here at the conference. Special thanks. This is our first live ever on the channel. I think we learned a few things. Special thanks to yes, there is a relation, my son Morris Garrison, who's over there running uh about three or four different devices at once to get this out there live on the web. And we have several other conferences that invite us to do it. So if you've enjoyed this, we'll do some other on-the-road shows here in August and September. But for now, from Kansas City, for all of us here at the Beyond Data Management Podcast, I'm Cameron Garrison, and we will be talking to you again from Niha soon. Have a great night.