Hello, SEDC, welcome to the SEDC podcast presented by our friends at Insightful. Insightful
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to the team at Insightful and Ray Methvin for partnering with SEDC to present the podcast.
My name is Matt Tackett. I'm the president of the Southern Economic Development Council.
And I have been looking forward to this episode for a long time because we have one of our
favorite people on the show. Because of that, we don't want to keep our audience waiting
and we are going to dive right in with Miss Jessica Bro of Amazon. Jessica is the Senior
Manager of Economic Development of Amazon and an important contributor and leader within
the American South and beyond. And we all know the American South continues to raise the
economic development bar as the world's third largest equivalent economy. And that is thanks
to our great SEDC members, great friends like Jessica and the iconic enterprise within
our footprint that we are going to dive into today. So Jessica, thank you so much for joining
the podcast. This is such an honor for us. Welcome. And where in the world are you today?
Hey, Matt. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast today. I too have been looking forward
to this chat. So always fun to talk about economic development in particularly economic development
in the Southeast. So thanks for having me. I do get to travel quite often, but today I am
actually in Nashville, which is my home base for Amazon. So yeah, talking to you alive for
music city. That is so good. You know, we were catching up a few minutes before we went live.
But I'm in Nashville right now too. And it's such this such an interesting coincidence because
I travel a lot too, not nearly as much as you, but we're both in the same city right now. What a small
world that that is. Well, you know, so many of our folks know you and across the country and so
many of our communities. But for those that don't help out, we we spend a minute or two here just
to get real and pull back the curtain and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Yeah, for sure. Happy to. So I think, you know, some of the most important things or at least
most important things to me that I would want people to know sort of outside of my work life.
Huge fan of the New Orleans Saints completely loyal to that team, even though I don't live in
South Louisiana anymore. That is where I grew up. And I'm actually sitting in my home office today.
And I'm looking around here and I've got quite a bit of Saints memorabilia on the walls.
So that's a huge part of who I am. But certainly like some of the things that I enjoy doing outside of
work traveling. I am also probably close close to the as huge a fan of the Rolling Stones as I am
of the Saints. So generally, if my husband and I are traveling around, we're probably trying to
find the Rolling Stones in some countries. So we've seen them now. I think it's in five to
their five or six different countries with my favorite being a concert we saw in Marseille France
a couple of years ago. So yeah, so those are probably like my my three favorite things
outside of family would be, you know, Saints traveling and live rock and roll.
You know what? I don't understand. And maybe you can give me a little bit of the secret here.
So I was looking at myself on camera and looking at myself just with Halloween pictures with the kids.
And I just can't believe how old I look. But the Rolling Stones, those guys are in their
80s or something, right? Like how do they do what they do and look as good? Like what is the
secret partying or music or what do you think it is? Yeah, I mean, I think there's got to be
something to all night rock and roll, I guess. Like that's the secret to longevity because I'm
pretty sure Mick Jagger just celebrated like his 80th birthday or something like that. And I
completely agree with you. I mean, they, when I see the Rolling Stones and talk to people about
the Rolling Stones, it's not even like they're great for their age. I think they're still just one
of the top, if not the top rock and roll bands out there. So they are doing it right. I also
read somewhere and it might have been like back when Mick Jagger was having a little bit of heart
trouble or had some kind of episode. But if I think he runs something or like his performance is
equivalent to something like three to four miles, like running on stage. So maybe that has something
to do with it too. But that explains nothing about Keith Richards. He's just an anomaly. I don't know
how that guy's still doing it. Yeah. Well, that does really make sense. I read an article or Twitter
who knows probably just something totally fake about Ozzy Osborne recently. And how he is such a
medical enigma. People don't know how he's still going and doing what he does, but he's not
been performing. So maybe he's more of a mystery. I don't know. But you know, something that I had
on my mind and it's asked you earlier, but you and I were in France around the same time of the
summer or maybe earlier this year, whatever seems like I went in May or something like that. And you
were in June. So I know when I was there coming in and coming out, I was stuck in the airport
for multiple days. So was I hope that was a lot smoother for you. Yes. I did not have those
troubles. Do not don't jinx me, Matt. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the the Olympics are there next year.
So you could tell they were gearing up for that. I'm sure it'll all be smooth. But
Absolutely. We actually went to Paris this summer. My husband celebrated a milestone birthday.
And it was always his dream to see mezzi play a lot of mezzi. And so we went to see him play with
Paris Saint Germain. And I think it was maybe when we were back in the United States for four
or eight hours that it was announced that he was coming to Miami. So we were like, we cut away
it. And that would have been a much different trip. But it was still cool nonetheless.
At least she got the Paris trip in. So that worked out perfect. Well, let's
so I wanted to dig in on it. I feel football with you offline before too much longer. And
just college football talk saints, maybe talk some smack to about some of my favorite teams here
arrivals. But let's let's dig into you a little bit. And here's something kind of off the wall.
I didn't know about this or this about you until recently. So I'm sure probably a lot of our
audience may not know this. But for all the leadership and as well established and well known
as you are an economic development, you were actually a journalism major at Northwestern,
I believe. So is that true? And can you can you talk to us about that for a little bit?
Yes. So just a point of clarification for the audience. I was a journalism major at Northwestern
state. So not to be confused with the Northwestern that most people probably recognize.
But Northwestern state in Nakanish, Louisiana. So Northwest, Louisiana. Most of the folks that I
graduated high school with went on to LSU. And I just felt the need to spread my wings a little.
So I took off a little further from home and went to Northwest Louisiana for college.
It did major in journalism. I graduated with a journalism public relations degree in my undergrad.
But did not ever formally work in public relations, either for a firm or for you know a
smaller agency. However, I feel like it's been it was and it has been you know a tremendous kind of
base for me in the work of economic development and the work that I do now. Just in terms of
learning like how to communicate with people effectively. I had some amazing professors in college
who really like just grilled in to me and to my classmates, you know how to be professional
in terms of how you communicate and just how much that can set the tone for a conversation or
a project or really anything that they're working on. So I would not change that one bit. It was
an incredible experience and truly like a great college experience for me at Northwestern. I
loved it. Well, good point of clarity there too for the folks in in Chicago and the folks in
Northern Louisiana. But you mentioned a good point that that makes a lot of sense. And I don't
think there is really at least as far as I've saw and we don't do this at SDDC and maybe we should.
But it makes a lot of sense to have that type of training in your economic development work. So
that that makes so much sense about why that was such a great at your professional attribute or
professional training for use. That's definitely something for for Matthew Darius and I get to take
away. But aside from everything about like the amount of writing that you do and the different
audiences that economic developers communicate with whether it's you know internal to your
organization or your internal to your communities or external to folks like site selection
consultants and folks like myself. And you communicate on such a wide variety of topics. So I mean,
I think it was really kind of a great way. You know, gave me a lot of confidence in how I write
and how I communicate and it's been been very beneficial. I think that would be an incredible
addition to any educated curriculum that any professional organization like ours would want to
want to provide definitely for for SDDC as well. So Matthew Darius and I stay tuned for more of that.
That's such such fundamental communicative writing, marketing, journalism style content would be
really good for us. But do you ever really silly question for you that's just popped in my mind here?
So when I look at people on the news or on TV for for example, this is ridiculous. So I'm sorry
on the front end. You can tell that there is a very common shared dialect or shared way to speak
like I am Matt Techett reporting live. And is that something that is is the news voice or the
news way of delivery? Is that something that's taught or am I just hearing things?
Yeah, I don't know if I would describe it so much as a voice that's taught, but certainly
lots of focus. And to, you know, journalism similar to other fields is divided up into
concentrations. And so, you know, we have folks that are print journalism majors, you have folks
that are broadcast journalism majors and then folks like myself who were on the public relations
track. But certainly, you know, in in the field you're taking all of those classes, it's just kind
of your concentration determines how much of what you focus on. But yes, to the degree that
alliteration, subject verb agreement, clarity, all of those things are certainly things that you
are taught and practice on a very regular basis. And even more so, you know, if you are on a on a
broadcast journalism track. Well, you never know what we'll talk about here. I know just before
we move on, I like to learn AP writing style or just I drive people crazy probably because I like
to put a lot of our releases out and kind of press release journalistic form. And I have no clue
exactly how to structure that or all the rules involved. So that'll be a training all look to do.
But from from journalism, economic development is is certainly interesting. And you're like so
many of us that your path from when you got started where you are today isn't a straight line.
So talk to us about how did you from a journalism major eventually find economic development
and a little bit of your history before Amazon. Yeah, absolutely. I love this about our profession
because I just think everyone has such a cool story about how they find found their way to
this work. And and honestly, I think it's such a diverse field that it can be a really great career
path for all kinds of folks with all kinds of different backgrounds and training and professional
experiences. So I love this question. So I'll take you on a little bit of a journey. Hopefully this
doesn't bore the audience and drag on too long. I'll try to be brief. But while I was at Northwestern
State, I had the opportunity to intern with the mayor's office as part of my college curriculum.
And I worked specifically in Nacadish has a really strong Main Street program. So worked specifically
in the Main Street office, which was under the umbrella of economic development for the city.
And so as you can imagine as an intern, you get an opportunity to do all kinds of stuff.
The lots of that was event development, communicating with small businesses that operated
on Main Street, which in Nacadish is called Front Street, had an opportunity to put together a
bunch of events, but also being the intern and being kind of, you know, game to do whatever and
get tons of courage, exposure. I had the opportunity from time to time to support the city on various
economic development visits. So whether that was kind of setting up the conference room or driving
guests around, I got a lot of exposure to the profession in that way and just really liked it and
thought it was a lot of fun and just really cool to, you know, A kind of be behind the scenes and
see how some of this stuff unfolds and have visibility and awareness about things that were
happening in my community kind of before the general public did. I always thought that was fun.
But then also just the fruits of your labor, right? It's really rewarding to kind of work a project
behind the scenes for months, sometimes years, and then see that come to fruition. So I would say
that that was really kind of when my sort of passion for this work was really born. And then I
moved on from Nacadish to graduate school and I went to graduate school in Fayetteville, Arkansas,
the University of Arkansas, which is an interesting story for another time sort of how I ended up
changing majors in grad school. But I made my way over to getting my masters in public
administration with an emphasis in community and economic development, which was a tremendous
program for me. And while I was doing that in grad school, I worked for the university and the
Walton College of Business supporting small businesses in the Small Business Development Center,
which is part of the campus. And then from there, I went on to do economic development work for
the Rogers Little Chamber in Northwest Arkansas, which was also an amazing experience that part of
the country still is experiencing tremendous growth and certainly was when I was working in
Northwest Arkansas. And then that led me over to the state. So I worked for the state of Arkansas
doing economic development work, both community development and then transitioning in the project
management work during my time at AEDC. And then when I left AEDC, I moved to Nashville.
So I've been in Nashville for almost 12 years now, which seems hard to believe. I love it here.
It's gone by fast, but I absolutely love it. But I moved to Nashville to do economic
development work for the Tennessee Valley Authority. So similar to my time with the state of Arkansas,
I joined TVA on a community development track. And then not long after joining the company,
did project management work, specifically focusing on the Nashville region. And then just before
I left TVA to come to Amazon, I was managing TVA's regional field team, which are the folks that
essentially are recruiting projects and working projects regionally throughout TVA service territory.
Like I said, kind of long-winded, but had an opportunity to just do a ton of different things
in this field. So both from the local perspective of the Chamber of Commerce, small business
development, Main Street, just the heart of our communities, and then all the way through.
Working some pretty big and cool projects, both from the TVA perspective. And then now working
and doing this work for Amazon, just on the opposite side of, you know, on the other side of the
deal, but still in a way that I feel like is really impactful to the communities that we offer
again. You know, well, thank you for that. What wasn't long-winded. This is one of those episodes
where I wish we had more time because there were so many nuggets just from that answer that we could
dig in on just kind of personal from like connections, just things that you've said that ring
about with me. Like I was in MPA as well. I'd love to talk with you about that, but you mentioned so
many of our great members, TVA, the friends in Arkansas, the community. But I think one thing that
I guess I'd like to say, but like before I hang it up or whatever my next step is after
SDC or after that, I want to try it at a community level and just be in the weeds every day,
advocating, championing and just building for prosperity and just try to leave a legacy impact,
because I believe in and appreciate so much what economic developers do to prepare,
today for a better tomorrow for people and enterprise and community in their state. So
this means so much. I mean, I'm so appreciative of our members, but on that note, I just think from
such a diverse history that and great depth of experience, what are a handful of memorable projects
that you worked or maybe even memorable programs that you implemented?
Yeah, that is so hard because I feel like so many of them have been just so fun. Like I've had
a lot of fun in my career, which if you're listening to this and you're not having fun,
like find a way to make it fun because it matters and make such a difference in your day-to-day,
attitude when you're having a good time. I think I have to mention the Amazon project,
that is Amazon Nashville because it did change my life in a lot of ways. So it was part of the
Nashville team that worked on the HQ2 project. I was still at TBA at the time, but was part of that
recruitment team and just being a part of that process, which ultimately really led to the
opportunity that I have now, which is working for Amazon. That was super cool, but there also have
been just so many projects along the way that I think, you know, the big names are catch headlines
and they're flashy and they're easy to talk about because everyone knows the company and
and everybody kind of recognizes initially how impactful of a deal or a project that may be.
But some of the projects that I've worked that earn smaller communities that are creating
30 jobs, 40 jobs, 50 jobs, even less in some cases, but to that community are clearly changing
people's lives, like that is why you do the work. And I think it's why everyone and this profession
is always willing to roll up their sleeves and jump in and find ways to make it happen
is just really very rewarding. And the people and the relationships that you build along the way and
you know, I could sit here for over an hour and and raffle off just the awesome people that I have
I've had an opportunity to work with throughout the Southeast because it is just such a place of
you know, let's make it happen. Kind of regardless of what it takes and how hard we have to work,
let's make it happen. Yeah, and there's such a massive dedicated passionate network of people
that are so committed to making it happen and building stronger families communities,
region states, just like I said, I mean, economic developers and our network especially,
and I throw out stats about what people in the mayor or economic developers in the
Americans out there doing every day, but at the heart of this, they are doing transformative
things that just have generational impact. So I'm so passionate. I don't believe there's any better
work that that can happen. So thank you so much for for diving in on that. It's really fun to kind of
take a look back at kind of the past before before Amazon, but I'm really fascinated to talk about
present day here. And even before we get into the the economic development, I mean, you're the
you're the senior manager of economic development at Amazon, but it must be just a fascinating,
fascinating experience. I mean, to work for Amazon, I mean, can you pull back the curtain a
little bit and speak to what it's like to work for one of the world's most commerce defining,
innovative, biggest, and leading companies? For sure. I mean, and I alluded to it, you know,
my response to the last question, I mean, going to work for Amazon was a transformational moment
in my life. And I, I guess I shouldn't say moment, because I'm still living it, but the transformational
time in my life, it was a tremendous professional opportunity. The people that I'm surrounded by
on a day to day basis are truly some of the smartest people in their given profession and
their subject matter expertise. And I think that's one of my favorite things about the company.
Is there are many verticals to which we operate, right? There's all kinds of things that we do
from the e-commerce business that's certainly well known from the AWS side to, you know,
recent things that are happening with Amazon Pharmacy. There's so much stuff going on at the
company and people are really the best in the business in what they're working on. And that's
really awesome to like be in a room and know that you're in the room with the leading minds of
whatever it is that you're talking about. I have worked tremendously hard here, but in the best
possible way. Like the, everything that the company, all of our decision-making is always focused
on the customer and how do we improve that customer experience. And for those folks that are
listening, you know, if you have not kind of read or read about Amazon's leadership principles,
we have 16 leadership principles that truly do guide the work that we do with the company.
I have several that are favorite, some that I think are really applicable to the work that
economic developers do in our communities, but things like earning trust and delivering results
and being, you know, focused on the customer. All of those things really do drive decision-making
here. And you will hear, you know, everywhere from our senior leadership team that reports
for CEO, you know, all the way through the company. Folks are talking about our leadership
principles and turning and thinking about leadership principles when they're making decisions.
So that's really cool to just be in a place where there's very clear guidance. I'm very clear
guidelines on kind of what we're doing and the why behind we're doing it. Behind why we're doing
it and that makes makes the job just really fun and really rewarding.
You know, I I love something that they're a handful of things that you said there.
Best in the business that that's no doubt that the some of the greatest minds or some of your
colleagues and that that's really neat to think about and you think about bigger picture.
Amazon has changed the world and directly impacts all of us daily and will continue to innovate
and just evolve and just impact our lives in such a positive, positive way. But you you mentioned
leadership principles in the 16 aspects of that and we would love to dive into that more
at a future SCDC webcast or webinar or on stage. But I'm sure that those principles that guide
a company like Amazon can be made applicable to communities surely, right?
Oh yeah, absolutely. Like one of my favorites, I mentioned a minute ago,
Earn Trust, which is essentially like, you know, it is your job to be always checking where you are,
what, you know, what your team is contributing to the to the broader picture.
Speaking candidly, listening to others, but being respectful, right? And I think so much of that
in the economic development space, when we were working on these deals and they have been flow
and things change and partners change and we run into challenges and we run into obstacles,
don't think anyone is surprised by that. But I think really where communities have an
opportunity to kind of set themselves apart is how they approach those challenges. How are you
problem solving for them? Because, you know, if myself is like, if I'm thinking about where I'm
going to make a multi-million dollar decision, whether that's Amazon or another company,
I want to know that there are strong local partnerships there, right? So when we run into challenges
in the site selection space, I've got to trust that you're going to problem solve those challenges
with me because if we're not problem solving them together, you know, in site selection,
then it doesn't leave a lot of confidence that will be problem solving for them together,
you know, once a facility or a building, our company is up and operating or manufacturing
something. Yeah, no doubt. So many best practices and as you're kind of providing the example
of site selection, you know, it's a good opportunity for us to kind of move to some economic
conversations or specifically for economic development. So I think I've got a two-parter here. So
this, I'll always love seeing this, reading this or an opportunity to get in front or be with
someone from Amazon to talk about the economic impact and the transformative impact you have on
the nation. So that's the first part. And then the second part follow up to that is, so what does
economic development look like at Amazon? Yeah, definitely. So we, from an economic impact standpoint,
like we do certainly pay attention to where, you know, what we're doing and how we are creating
jobs and investing into the country, we recently updated actually just in September, so not very old
data at all, recently updated sort of our economic impact across the US. And so we have since,
you know, as of January of this year, so recently released data going back to January of 23,
we have a million full and part-time jobs directly created by Amazon across all of the US,
which is just really tremendous to think about. And that doesn't include two million plus jobs that
are, you know, indirectly supported by the company's investments, whether that's in construction
or logistics or things like hospitality, just, you know, by the kind of influx end of the economy.
And then from an investment standpoint, we've been looking at these numbers and reporting these
numbers since 2010. And since that timeframe, we've invested more than a trillion dollars with a T,
in the US economy, which includes things like infrastructure and compensation to our teams,
but still some pretty outstanding numbers and something I'm certainly proud to be a part of.
It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. I mean, and I always go back to this,
three million jobs. How many families is that? How many communities spread out across how many
states? I mean, it's just an unbelievable, generationally, consequential, positively,
great impact. So thank you so much for what you do to drive commerce and strengthen families and
communities. Unbelievable. The trillion dollar invested too. It's almost hard to understand
that type of numbers. I mean, compare this, okay? I'd love to say that the American South is the
world's third largest equivalent economy, because we are, but we're collectively about 10,
nine to 10 trillion of the US GDP. Well, Amazon is 10% of what Amazon collectively is a trillion dollars.
I mean, it's just unbelievable the scale and the impact that you have. And we are so
honored that you're part of SDC and more importantly appreciative for all that you do. So
if we can, if maybe we can scale down from the national level to maybe think about the SDC
footprint. I know you're so well involved and integrated with our folks, but can you talk to
why it makes sense for Amazon to be invested in this part of the nation as well and some of the
specific business advantages that we have? Certainly. I mean, I think, you know, our decision making
and I kind of mentioned this a little earlier in talking about our leadership principles and
sort of some of the guidance or the guidelines, if you will, that we think about or pertain to
when we are investing, but we're always thinking about the customer. And so for us, you know,
it's improving that customer experience. How do we deliver for our customers? How do we deliver
faster for our customers? How do we provide, you know, as much choice as possible? And so
certainly from our perspective, you know, operating in the South and in the Southeast has to happen,
right? And we want to be here and we have experienced great and tremendous partnerships
with folks in the throughout the Southeast. We are always, you know, working to build those
partnerships, to look at things like workforce development, look at things like site availability,
look at things like again, kind of the strong state and local partnership piece. All of that
stuff's got to be working for any business, whether it's Amazon or someone else, you know,
to be able to be successful from an operating standpoint. So those are certainly things that we
think about, those are certainly things that we've experienced throughout the Southeast. I'm,
you know, have most of my work in economic development has been in this part of the world. And it
truly is always a partnership where we, you know, are welcomed, we are at a table, conversing,
and being supported and looking for opportunities for both, you know, both sides to benefit in terms
of our ability to serve our customer will also be able to provide, you know, good paying jobs and
economic opportunity for people in a community. So we love doing business in the Southeast. I'm
happy to be, you know, living and working in the Southeast as part of Amazon's team. And it's just,
it's been a great experience. Yeah, I'm so proud of what the, what the collective network of
the, of the South does to just really be such a nurturing pro-growth environment and just be so
future-focused and so readily. Yeah, I think about not to cut you off, Matt, but like if you think
about not only like Amazon's operations footprint, which when I say that, I'm talking about
fulfillment centers, delivery stations, buildings and our delivery network that get orders to customers.
So you certainly have like a strong network of that in the Southeast, but you also have a strong
network of corporate offices. We have our HQ2 facility in Arlington. You have Amazon Nashville,
which is a corporate office for us. And then there's a whole not, you know, host of other corporate
offices and other, you know, Southeast cities like Dallas and places like that where you have a really
strong corporate presence from the company too. So a really good mix of of our operations team
and our corporate teams, which make it, you know, a great place to do all kinds of business.
Yeah, no doubt. I mean, we're seeing accelerated growth. We're seeing the world's best strategies
to prepare to perpetuate and accelerate future growth. It's a really, really exciting time in
the South. Last year, collectively, our network did about 200 billion dollars worth of capital
investment deals that will create about 250,000 new jobs. We are doing very, very well. This year,
I can't wait to update numbers for our membership, but it's just a really, really great exciting
pro-growth time in the South and it always has been and will continue to be. But with everything I
just said and with your experience in the field and expertise, can you drop some nuggets or some
best practices just kind of in general for our audience specific to investment readiness and what,
you know, from your perspective, makes the community stand out?
For sure. A couple of things like just off the cuff when I think about this. So
I have said this for a long time. I mentioned earlier, the community development work in addition
to sort of the project management recruitment work. And I always shared this with communities
when they were starting to strategic plan or maybe revitalizing strategic plans and kind of
regrouping in a sense, this stuff really only works. If you get down to the nuts and bolts of it,
it really only works with a site. It all starts there, right? So the real estate's got to be there.
And I think from the perspective of the company or site selection consultant,
you know, the more that you can do as a community to not only have control of the land or at least
if you don't have control of it, be certainly walking lockstep with the private entity that does,
anything that you can do to get that particular piece of property more development ready just makes
you that much more competitive. When you're able to do that, you're eliminating risk for the company,
you're eliminating time, you're eliminating money. And it just makes the overall investment more
attractive and it makes individuals that are decision makers more comfortable with moving forward.
So I think it all starts there like you've got to have something to sell to really be effective.
And then I think, you know, another thing I would mention is don't as a community get so locked
into your pitch that you aren't able to adjust and tailor the conversation specific to the audience,
right? So a manufacturing company is going to be interested in very different things from
a corporate office or in some ways, even a fulfillment center or warehouse and distribution project.
So don't get kind of so rehearsed in how you present your community that you aren't able to kind
of tailor and modify that presentation so that you're talking about things that matter to that
particular industry or to that particular company. Yeah, I'm so thankful the way that you
you answered this. You know, this isn't the official SEDC statement here. This is Matt
Tackett, but look, speed to market. I mean, from my perspective is key in providing enterprise
with really quick and risk-free decisions is just paramount. Those are the communities that will win
because I think about it like this, you know, for as sophisticated as of an industry and mature as we
are and for all the conversations we have around workforce or incentives or marketing and all
that is so critical. Look, a business or consultant or whoever's not going to evaluate any of that
where a site doesn't exist. So that's that's the way that I look at it too and I'm so thankful
that you said that and that's one of the reasons why we have so much conversation around product
development and site readiness here and stay tuned for more because that'll be a big part of what we
continue to do at SEDC. But before we move on to kind of the hot seed and the fun stuff,
I just wanted to just kind of say publicly here that, you know, and thank you, but Amazon is just
such an incredible partner to so many communities, so many organizations throughout the United States
and definitely in the American South. You took a chance on us a few months ago and made, you know,
you came in as a key investor of SEDC, for example, we don't move forward successfully without you,
so I think you and Amazon so much for that, but that's clearly something that you're committed to,
but can you share a bit about key community state or pro-growth partnerships that you have and why
that's important? For sure, and thank you for that. We're certainly happy to be a partner and
working with and supporting SEDC. You know, we want to see strong economic developers across the
Southeast and across the country and want to make sure, you know, we're being a good partner and
making sure that those professional development tools are there, not only for professionals that are
in the field now, but for folks that are coming up behind them, so very happy to be a partner on a
lot of this great work. From our standpoint, you know, it's, we want to be good neighbors and we
want to be good community partners, and we, you know, the majority of the folks that work in our
facilities are really all of them, like the folks that are working in our building to live in your
communities, and so it's important to us, like not only from sort of Amazon corporate perspective,
to be engaging in public-private partnerships, listening to our communities and helping them,
you know, work on the things that are important to them, so that's, that's super important,
but then we also, within our buildings and in our operations facilities, we have what we call
affinity groups, and those affinity groups, there's a wide variety of them. So, you know, there's
the black employee network, there's warriors at Amazon, there's women in engineering, there's
glamour on, with all kinds of affinity groups that operate in our buildings, and so for our team
members, it's also really important that through those affinity groups, they're finding ways
to volunteer or support initiatives that are important to them that are close to home. And so,
you really will see us engaging in a lot of different ways, but it's just, you know, our philosophy
and something that's important to us that we are good neighbors and places where we operate.
No doubt, and you certainly are, and I'm familiar with a lot of those initiatives and so many
best practices, and we just can't thank you enough for being so involved with, with SEDC,
and I mean, that's more importantly with our communities and our states, and throughout the
entire nation. I mean, we're so honored to just be a small little part of your, your network.
So thank you for everything that you do, and thank you for, for moving through these questions,
and your time here today. I know, I know you're busy, and I know we've dug into a lot of weeds here,
and we've been pretty nice with a lot of softball questions, okay? So now it's time to get real,
and to put you on the Research Uncensored seat, sponsored by our great friends at Research FDI.
Research FDI is a trusted investment attraction and trade development partner,
working all over the world, and our listeners know Bruce Takifim and CEO and the great work that he
does to introduce global enterprise, to the advantages and opportunities that we have in America,
and definitely in the American South. So we thank the great team at Research FDI for sponsoring
the Uncensored seat. So Matthew Darious is here, insert the spooky music, Jessica, sorry about
this. Thank you for having fun with us though. Are you ready for the Uncensored seat?
I think so. Okay, okay. So first off, who would play you in a movie?
Oh, God, that's really hard. Let's see. Okay, don't judge me, because I don't think I'm
nearly as like gorgeous as either one of these women, but I think they're just both so classic
that I would go, I would be like over the moon with either Diane Keaton or Sally Fields,
like just classic, consummate professionals. Yeah, I really, they have both been in so many good
movies that I really like, especially Sally Field. Like, you know, one of those things though,
like, have they been in a recent movie? I'm trying to think so. I think they're like,
they've been around for a long time. I don't know how much new stuff is out there, but I just
have loved both of them. Especially Sally Field for me. Like, I don't know, just, you know,
she's always been kind of a fan favorite, but Matthew Darius and I will need to look back
and see what they've been up to recently. So okay, so here's a tricky question. So it's really
easy to think about a TV show that you love, and you can answer just with whatever your favorite
TV show is if you'd like, but what's a TV show that you're into that maybe you'd be a little
embarrassed to tell us. Uh, let's see. I have watched a lot of episodes of The Real Housewives,
like all of the students follow a lot of them on Instagram and social media and probably not
so much these days, but I would say at one point, not in the so distant future, it's probably a
little too invested in the life and times of The Real Housewives. That's perfect. That's perfect.
You know, I've never saw that, but so many of my friends are. So I know that's one of those that
you can, you can get into. That's Matthew Darius' favorite TV show, by the way. He's really into it,
but we haven't been a lot more Matthew because, uh, yeah, I've certainly watched my fair share of
episodes. He'll be mad at me. That's probably not. You never know, but he'll be mad at me for that.
You know, I'm really into, um, there's so many TLC shows that my wife is into and somehow like,
I just, I get hooked on those. So I'm looking forward to like, okay, it's Tuesday night. You know,
let's check out 90 day fiance and see if they're going to make it, you know, and now I'm in,
we'll, we'll cut that out. So, okay. What is your favorite karaoke song?
Sticking with the Rolling Stones, it would have to be a hockey-talk woman, which might surprise
some people. That is my most favorite Rolling Stones song. I remember being a kid and singing like
ride down the road, um, singing that song with my dad, and it's just, if I'm, I don't do karaoke
often, but if I were going to, I would definitely go with the Rolling Stones classic.
We're, we're thinking about, here's a nugget for SDC folks, the KAD people in Kentucky will
definitely think, well, of course, he's going to do that, but we're thinking about bringing karaoke
into some of our, our conferences. So we know what to have cute up for you for sure, but
there you go. Okay, almost, almost through here. We, um, this is always a fun one of mine, but we know
you fly a lot, I do too, but I know you fly a lot more than me. So curious, what's your favorite
airport? Well, uh, not to be show favoritism or B2 bias here, but the improvements and the
recent upgrades at being a airport in Nashville are top notch. If you have not been through the
national airport recently, um, they have invested tons of money. It looks great. There's tons of
local restaurants that are vendors now, um, and really like just gives a completely different
feel to the airport. So at these days, I spend a lot of time there, um, and, and love it. The
improvements have just been fantastic. We hear that all the time. We always like to ask that
question, but we also just hear that in passing just kind of conversationally about how gray the
airport is, especially the, the, the improvements, and we know it's just so busy with everything.
I don't know how many cranes I counted on my way into Nashville today. Like every time I come,
it's just always so amazing to see such great work that's happening in Tennessee and definitely
around Nashville. But we hear that that airport, I haven't been, um, just yet, but we know that's
such a great asset for, for us here in the south, especially in Nashville. So you are, okay, last
one here. We know you're a great public speaker. We, we've saw you in so many places and we've been
lucky enough to have you at SDC conferences as well. So you do a great job. It looks like it's no
sweat for you, but curious, what's the most nervous that you've been at doing something like that?
Hmm. But try to shake off. I do still get nervous. I think like, I, I do, I definitely do still
get nervous. Uh, for sure. I would say probably the most nervous I've been was, um, back during my
time in Arkansas, uh, had the opportunity to introduce a, uh, former elected official. So I didn't
even like do a presentation, but it was a very high profile, like to officially probably figure out who,
um, in that definitely had me shaking in my boots. So yeah. Oh, I bet, I bet. So we'll, um,
I don't know the last time you were with us, we were in San Antonio, massive, massive ballroom.
And I don't remember how many people we had at that event, but the ballroom is just so huge. So
however many we had in there, it probably looked like a little bit more, but I was nervous that
that event. You just came in and killed it like always. So that was curious. If you,
for sure, and it was a packed ballroom, um, definitely like death. Yeah, it was a great crowd.
So I, well, I love San Antonio too, just as an aside, I can't wait to go there, but or go back,
but Jessica, you made it. You're off the hot seat. Thank you so much for having fun with us on
this one and diving into all the weeds and all that you do. But what do you think about the podcast
and do you have any final thoughts? I thoroughly enjoyed being a guest. So I appreciate you guys
making the invite. Um, it's been a pleasure chatting with you and look forward to the next big
SCDC event. Well, you're such a great friend to us. We can't thank you enough for, for everything
that you do. Thanks for your time today and being a major, major important part of the American
South. You are a great friend to all of us. So thank you to SCDC for listening as well and to
those outside of our membership. Thank you for tuning in before we leave. We invite our listeners
to check out all that we have going on at the SCDC website at www dot SCDC dot org and follow us
closely on social media. We want our members part of everything that we do and to get plugged in.
You can reach out to us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, email or give us an old-fashioned phone call as
well. So thank you SCDC. Join us next time on the SCDC podcast presented by insightful.