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Hello, SEDC, and welcome to the SEDC podcast
presented by our friends at Insightful,
who every day provide real-world innovations
for economic development.
Insightful believes your digital tools
should work as hard as you do for your community.
That's why Insightful creates
Data-rich modules, websites, and digital outreach
designed to make your visitor take notice
without complicating your day.
From core four modules, three pillars,
digital marketing strategies and comprehensive websites
to research and analysis, videography,
and collateral design,
Insightful works tirelessly as your on-call
EDC marketing department.
So thank you to the team at Insightful
for partnering with SEDC to present the podcast.
Now today is a special episode
because we have a great friend to SEDC
and more importantly, a great friend
to economic development,
especially our members on the podcast.
Our listeners know this person.
He is an impactful partner to so many across North America.
He's a mainstay at national conferences.
We're proud to say including SEDC.
And he's also a signature investor
in the Southern Economic Development Council.
And we hope Matthew inserts a big round of applause here.
It's one of the great ones.
We are thrilled to welcome Mr. Ron Bertese
to the SEDC podcast.
And for those that may not have had the chance
to meet Ron just yet, you will.
Ron joined GIS WebTech in 2016
and has helped the company become the GIS technology leader
in the economic development market.
GIS WebTech is the fastest growing provider
of technology to the economic development sector
with a compound annual growth rate of 119%.
Over the last five years.
Ron has served in the CEO role since 2001,
primarily in energy and technology business,
ranging from startups to 300 million divisions
of Fortune 150 companies.
During this period, Ron simultaneously worked
as an operating partner with two private equity firms
and has served on seven company boards
as both a company's CEO and an independent director.
Ron worked as a management consultant early in his career.
He holds an MBA from Dartmouth and a master's from UCLA
and a bachelor's from Colgate and was a summer student fellow
at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
He and his wife have three grown children.
So Ron, welcome to the podcast.
We can't thank you enough for your time.
And before we get going, where in the world are you today?
I'm working from my home office in coming Georgia,
which is just North of Atlanta on beautiful Lake Lanier.
That's right.
Atlanta is HQ1 for Matthew Darius and I and SCDC.
So the next time we're both in there,
we need to take you out for lunch if that sounds good.
That sounds great.
I'll even treat.
Oh, there we go.
Okay.
Okay.
So we'll pick then, we'll pick the spot for sure.
We're good at that.
Okay, Ron, you're the CEO of GIS WebTAC.
It's a globally active, fast growing provider of technology
for economic development and site selection.
And we have a ton of weeds to dive into here,
relative to that.
But before we do, let's just get simple.
Let's pull back the curtain on you.
We see you all across the world at conferences
or online making deals with the client somewhere
in North America or somewhere in the world.
But just tell us about you as Ron.
How about a little bit about yourself?
Sure.
Well, first, thanks for having me today.
I'm really excited to be here.
An interesting factoid about me is that I was originally
a geologist and geochemist, which I really loved.
In fact, I've got a chunk of the Earth's mantle
with me here in my home office.
I don't think that's very common in economic development.
My wife, Kathy and three grown children, as you mentioned,
and Kathy actually works in our business.
She's our head of customer success.
We're pretty active in our church.
Kathy and I are and we not only work together,
but we actually play mixed tennis,
mixed doubles tennis together on a team
that's mostly married couples.
So we spend a lot of time together.
Oh, how cool.
Okay. Okay.
How cool, I didn't know that about you.
So that just wrecked my brain.
Matthew, Matthew Dairys is here.
Let's test him really quick.
The three layers of the Earth.
Matthew, can you remember those?
Cause I think I can.
Core mental crust?
It crust mantle core.
Okay, very good.
Very good.
So the traditional way of viewing the Earth
was crust mantle core.
The crust is the outermost brittle layer.
The mantle is a more plastic, pliable layer.
And the core is the inner layer that's 100% metal.
Oh, wow.
Isn't that amazing?
Well, okay.
So, you know, Matthew and I,
we're in economic development for a reason.
You know, I don't think I knew that.
You know, I may have, now walk me back here.
This is either something I've made up
or something I've pulled from a movie.
But are we reading right now that the core
is reversing its circulation or something?
Yes.
So this is complicated and I am 30 years out of date
with it since I studied this.
But the core is metal.
And the core's flow creates a magnetic field
around the Earth.
And this magnetic field is what causes, for example,
the magnetic North Pole.
That's why your compass works.
So the Earth's polarity,
which is the magnetic,
it's essentially the direction of the magnetic field.
It reverses from time to time over geologic time.
And that seems to be going on now.
It's a normal thing.
It's, it's, no, and it takes many, many thousands of years
to happen.
It's not like it's gonna happen tomorrow,
but it seems to be going on now.
Okay.
Okay.
Now to the contrary point here,
the movie I saw in 2001 about this suggested
it's not good.
No, but you, you never know, Ryan,
what we're gonna talk about.
So thanks for indulging us with this.
But we, we really, we had no clue that you have that background,
but such such a fascinating person.
But we'll jump back into economic development here.
So as we said, you are, you're the CEO
of a major partner to economic development.
You're working all over North America.
So tell us about GIS WebTech.
What do you do?
And how do you help communities move the economic needle?
Yeah, love to jump into it.
So GIS WebTech is really a classic story
of technology disruption.
Several of us had worked together in GIS businesses before.
And we started this business in 2016
because when we looked at economic development,
we saw a really outdated technology
that just hadn't kept up with advances in GIS.
So we thought there was a really attractive business
opportunity to bring the latest,
the latest technology to what was at the time
a pretty sleeper, sleepy technology market.
So we formed our business in late 2016
and really made the classic entrepreneur's bet.
We took all of our startup capital
and rolled it into a new technology,
which we launched in 2017 and we called recruit.
Now when we launched that in late 2017,
we had four customers.
And today, barely five years later,
we have 169 customers.
And they're spread across the US and Canada.
And in fact, we just signed our first client
in Europe last week, which we're super excited about.
So we continue to grow rapidly.
We expect to close the year at about 200 customers,
you know, and at that point,
we will have been in the market for about six years
and grown from four to about 200.
Now that growth has been driven mostly by technology leadership.
For example, we retired the app I mentioned, recruit,
in 2022 when it was only about four years old
and completely replaced it with a new
and entirely purpose built app called Guru.
So where this market hadn't really seen much
in terms of new technology in many years,
we actually launched two apps in the last five years
and completely replaced our first one as I mentioned.
Plus we really only,
we're the only provider to develop an app specifically designed
for some unique needs.
For example, we have an app focused on rural,
economic development, which is unique in its requirements.
We've got an app built, yeah, the Canadian market.
And now in app we are adapting for the European market as well.
So that record of technology innovation
is now also extending into other areas
of economic development.
So we've got three new apps we're working on.
Hopefully all of them will be out this year,
certainly two will, hopefully the third will as well.
And they're really outside of our traditional focus
of online site selection.
They'll focus on economic development,
but they'll move our company beyond
our traditional concentration in online site selection.
Wow, and that's really impressive and amazing here.
And I want to talk about tech innovation,
that just step back on talk to you about the bet
that you made on yourself and the bet that you made
on the need for technology
and just that entrepreneurial spirit.
I always just find it so amazing
that to get to speak to someone that took an idea
and then converted that into something amazing.
And you've done it in such a short amount of time.
I mean, do you ever,
this probably isn't even a fair question,
but do you ever just step back and say,
wow, in such short amount of time I went from four employees
to the amount you have now
or now I have clients all over the world?
I mean, that's got to be just such an amazing thing
to think about if you ever allow yourself
to have time to do that.
Well, it's a great question Matt,
and I will tell you I do.
And it's not something I would have done
when I was younger, it comes with experience.
I know how hard it is to start a business
because I've tried several times before and they haven't worked.
Now, those were great learning experiences
and they helped me a lot when we got this business going.
But it's a difficult thing.
And the reason it's a difficult thing
is the US economy is very, very efficient.
There are not obvious business opportunities
laying around for somebody to pick up and jump in
and create a business.
It's generally a very efficient economy.
So what that means is finding the right opportunity
and being able to execute to build a business
is a difficult thing to do in this country.
So we don't sit around and rest on our laurels,
please don't misinterpret what I'm saying,
but I do for time to time our team about this
and say, hey, take a deep breath
because we have done great work.
We've built a viable business.
It's a great business in many ways.
It's great providing great technology,
great service to our clients.
That's the most important thing.
It's also a strong business economically.
It works profitably.
It's a really good job.
Now, the credit really goes to our team
much more than to me personally.
For example, I did not have the vision
for this business when we started it.
One of our co-founders, Jason Elliott,
who was our original CTO,
he's the guy who really looked at this and said,
hey, there's an opportunity here.
And he convinced Michael Cleary,
the Director, he's a co-operating officer and me
to join him in the new venture.
Yeah, it's so cool to hear.
And think about, it's probably hard to measure
the impact that you're having the communities
that contract with you and do amazing
and have success with economic development
and transform communities.
One great landed project can just have
such transformative consequence on a community.
And you're doing that all over the world,
but it is really easy to measure the impact
that you're having on the people that work for you
and the opportunity that you're providing
because you all believed in yourselves so many years ago.
So just thank you for all that you do
for the economic development space
and as an employer and provider of opportunity
for people as well.
So we really, really appreciate that.
We're so proud to work with you.
And you had mentioned,
and you've been an innovator in this
and you had mentioned tech innovation.
So I really especially in this profession,
find the impact of technology
and the way you are driving progress
and continually innovating it.
Just find it fascinating.
You know, the collection and presentation
and leveraging of data in economic development
is so cool.
And just the new things that come out
that we can use as a tool
to accelerate economic development never stops.
So can you, you know, thanks to people like you.
So can you talk about the changes
kind of in technology that you've seen
from when you got started in this to now?
Why that's been impactful and if you can,
or you know, and you may not want to,
but maybe a forecast of what's next?
Sure.
Well, it's really amazing how rapidly data and technology
are changing the whole profession of economic development.
And the reason is probably obvious,
but it's because data's now ubiquitous.
It's simply everywhere.
And where it used to be expensive,
the costs are now collapsing
really across the board for all types of data.
So when data becomes cheap,
people find clever ways to use it
and they create value from it.
Often that comes initially in custom work with consultants.
So there's some data that becomes available,
nobody's used it before.
People hire a consultant to help them figure out
how best to use it for their particular need.
But then over time, that gets standardized,
that use of the data gets standardized
and more and more that gets standardized
in the form of software, what we call apps.
So this creates both good news and bad news
for economic developers.
The good news is that technology is more and more,
allowing them to host and present data on their websites
and emphasize their strengths.
And really allows them to be much more impactful
in the way they present their story.
So what's the bad news as well?
As an organization,
really every economic development organization now
has to stay abreast of what's going on with technology.
You really have to, it's a requirement of the job now.
So it's no longer possible to be effective
as an economic developer
or an economic development organization
without some smart use of technology.
In terms of predictions, I'll give you one easy one
and one slightly more speculative prediction.
The easy one is that the site selection process
is going to continue to be more and more standardized
over time and we're gonna continue to see
even very small projects use technology
for site selection.
Why am I so confident in this prediction?
I said it's an easy one.
Well, because we're already working on it.
We're developing software that's gonna come out later this year
that's gonna bring the best of data and technology
to really every site location decision,
no matter how small.
So that's, I think a pretty obvious thing.
We see that trend coming.
The slightly more speculative prediction
is that economic development is gonna evolve
over the coming years to be as much about a battle for talent
as a battle for businesses.
So we see more and more of our clients coming
to the conclusion that they're not going to close
their workforce gaps through traditional upskilling alone.
Now upskilling of course is important,
but more and more of our clients are coming to the conclusion
that they're going to have to work on the chicken
and egg problem by attracting people
with the necessary skills.
The chicken and egg problem of course,
being, you know, it's hard to attract businesses
without people, it's hard to attract people without businesses.
So more and more of them seem to be focused
on talent attraction.
So they're really focusing on trying to get people
to move to their communities.
So again, this is something we're working on with clients.
It's something we're applying technology to.
We think this is really an emerging trend.
I don't think it's particularly controversial.
I think we talked to economic developers about it
around the US and Canada, you're gonna hear this a lot.
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
It's crucial we're seeing such great strategies
relative to people attraction, talent attraction
or population growth all across the American South.
We're seeing that pay meaningful dividends.
We're also seeing, you know, take the next step.
Okay, how can we alleviate or address any barriers
to employment, say in particular, for example, child care?
We're seeing so many great policy
and legislative strategies around that
and more all across the South.
And we can't wait to as an SCDC maybe curate
some of the great things that are happening,
especially relative to policy and put that out for our members.
But you had mentioned that, look, economic development,
you need to be, or economic developers,
you need to be in the data game.
And that's a good thing because if you look at the way
that people have been leveraging data,
especially in the American South,
we did $200 billion of deals last year.
We did, that created 250,000 new jobs.
When you do this and when you do it right,
do it well in a very modern, advantaged way,
you're just going to win and we see that all across the South.
Yeah, those are great points.
Go ahead Matt, sorry.
Well, I'd mention the South and we know you're working
all over North America and in Europe now,
but whatever, this is the SCDC podcast.
So we'd love to just know, okay,
what experiences do you have in the South
and do you want to shout out any of your member clients
or share a few success stories or funny stories
or anything like that?
Sure, no, I'd love to.
So we serve clients across the SCDC region.
If you think about the region,
we serve statewide clients like enterprises, Florida
and the southeastern part of the region,
State of Oklahoma Department of Commerce
in the northwestern part of the region.
We sort of regional organizations like Greater SATX,
which is in San Antonio,
the Council for South Texas Progress,
also in South Texas,
the Roanoke Regional Partnership in Virginia.
So statewide clients, big regional clients like that,
all the way down to smaller rural clients.
In fact, our smallest client that we serve
is a city of 2,000 people in Texas,
so in the SCDC region.
So lots and lots of clients.
It's been a great region for us.
We're headquartered here in Atlanta.
The Southeast is disproportionately impacting
economic development across the country
because it is traditionally,
the center of activity for economic development.
I don't need to discount other regions.
There are good things going on in other regions,
but there's a larger percentage of them
going on here than anywhere else.
And we just signed a contract with TDA,
one of the largest utilities in the country
with a service territory that's really right
back in the middle of the SCDC region.
And we're really excited about serving them as well.
Go ahead, congrats on that.
TDA is an incredible partner to us,
but you're right about the activity
that we're seeing in the American South
relative to the rest of the world.
I mean, look, third largest equivalent economy
right here in these 17 states,
we're taking a massive disproportionate chunk
of American FDI.
We're also taking the line share of new investment annually.
So it's such a great area for so many reasons,
but it's also such a great time
to be in economic development in the American South.
And it's really fun.
And you'd mentioned a while back
that we're not sitting on resting on our laurels
where we'll neither are these states
or these economic developers.
There are so many cool future focus strategies
that are being implemented every day.
And there's also so many cool new innovations
around technology and economic development practice
through partners like you.
So we'll just expect the momentum to keep on keeping on.
And I know Matthew Darius and I are really excited
to be a little tiny little part of that ride.
But you had mentioned just,
and I can say all day long that,
well, man is great, we're gonna expect that,
but you know what, you're in the weeds, you know, the data.
Talk to us about what you're seeing,
maybe in global economic development activity
and maybe a forecast just beyond what I can do
for the American South.
Sure, love to.
And the timing is great.
As I mentioned earlier, we just signed our first European
client, we were thinking a lot about markets
outside of North America.
We did a quick study of international markets this fall
and that's what led us to focus on Europe.
But I would say we see two global trends continuing
from the pandemic that are driving a lot of activity.
And these will not be news to you.
You're familiar with these things.
The first is reshoring of manufacturing,
which was actually a trend before COVID,
but accelerated during COVID.
Prior to COVID, it was driven by a gradual reduction
in the cost advantages that other parts of the world had
over the US, especially Asia.
But with COVID, of course, the driver shifted
to supply chain risks,
which were pretty widely underappreciated until then.
I think going into COVID,
most people would not have predicted the supply chain
struggles that resulted from the pandemic.
But for both reasons, we think this trend is going to continue.
We don't see this slowing down in the short term.
So we see reshoring as a continued driver
of project activity in the US.
Now this is a great advantage for the South,
for the American South, for the SADC region,
because manufacturing is a particular target
for many of the economic developers in the region.
And they have a lot of strengths to work with
and attract the reshoring manufacturing jobs.
All right.
The global trend we see is also, I think pretty obvious,
but it's changes in the distribution of consumer products.
As retail continues to shift online
from traditional brick and mortar,
distribution is changing pretty dramatically.
And it's changing to a more widely dispersed
distribution center model.
In other words, there are many more distribution centers now
and they tend to be smaller
than these gigantic warehouses we had in the past.
And they operate really differently
than traditional warehouses.
And we don't really see this trend slowing down at all either.
So we're gonna continue to see distribution activity.
Again, activity that does favor many regions
in the SADC territory.
A third thing I would say to keep an eye on is interest rates.
We've come out of really out of an unprecedented
40 year long era where interest rates
have generally declined in recent decades
been almost uniformly low, well below historic norms.
Right.
What's happening now looks like a lot like a return
to what used to be known as the business cycle,
which I learned about in business school in 1990s,
but seems to have been forgotten.
It's really a more traditional cycle
of increasing rates by the Fed to head off actual
or potential inflation,
followed by a slowing economy,
followed by a decrease in rates to stimulate the economy,
these cycles take years,
but this was the traditional cycle
we've seen many times since World War II,
up until this multi decade run now
where we had just low interest rates.
So for those of us of a certain age,
this is all very familiar,
but I look at the world now and I say,
hey, for people in business and government
and economic development below the age of maybe 45 or something,
they've never seen this cycle in their careers
because it's been so long since we've had one.
Right.
So I think this is another thing to keep an eye on.
I think interest rates,
they're in front page news every day,
inflation is front page news every day.
For many economic developers
who haven't been through this cycle before,
this is something they really need to pay attention to
because changing interest rates will have a direct impact
on project activity.
Yeah, no doubt, and you're so right.
And I'm a perfect example of this
and perhaps Matthew is too.
So all I have ever known in business
or personal or trying to buy things
or since I've been in economic development
are the interest rates at the level that I was used to.
I'm 40 years old.
Now what I didn't realize is as they are creeping,
you go back and look at historic trends
about where interest rates have been
through a multi-decade cycle,
they've been up even beyond where we are now.
So that's just something that you're so right
that I was totally unfamiliar with.
And I'm so glad that you got to mention that
as just kind of a little nugget for economic developers
of a certain age or any age really to be mindful of
because it obviously does impact everything that we do
and economic market conditions overall.
But you'd mentioned FDI and your optimism there.
We are as well.
We're so optimistic relative to the continual
on-shoring and manufacturing
or continued international investment.
I mean, if you think about energy prices abroad
or geopolitical stability or even don't think about that,
just think about what a great investment
the United States is for international enterprise.
We'll just continue to expect trends
just continuing at the rate that they are
for the next handful of years.
SEDC has put some investment behind that optimism.
We'll be going to Hanover Mesa in Germany this year
to be the voice of the American South
as a business destination.
I know you and I will be at SelectUSA together.
We have, I think I have a booth
on the opposite end of the exhibit hall,
but we want to be the voice of the South
as a business destination on behalf of our members
and we'll hope to be as impactful there as we can.
And even if we weren't doing that,
we'll just continue to expect the good times
to keep on rolling relative to FDI.
So I'm so glad that you mentioned that.
But with everything that we just said,
a handful of things,
what are, can you boil down maybe just a few minutes,
just a few things communities or EDO should consider
to best position themselves for success
in the global marketplace in the time that we happen to be in?
Yeah, I would say a couple things.
First, keep an eye on interest rates
as we just talked about.
Now, obviously economic developers cannot affect interest rates,
but I think for major projects certainly,
and even for smaller projects,
it's, yeah, I think what economic developers should do
is try to develop a sense of the sensitivity
of the given project to interest rates.
In other words, it's going to depend on the financing
of the particular project,
but if it's heavily debt financed and or that debt financing
has variable rates attached to it,
those projects are gonna be more sensitive
to interest rates and at risk for cancellation or delay
if rates increase.
So that's the first thing.
I'd say keep an eye on interest rates,
try to understand them quantitatively
with respect to the projects you're working on.
The second things I would say are not new either,
but they bear repeating.
You really can't say this often enough
in economic development.
It's really critical for economic developers
to keep their websites up to date with the data
and information that businesses are looking for.
Sounds obvious, right?
Your website is your front door.
We've all heard this thing many times over the years.
But the need to update your website is continuing
and the cycle with which you need to update is accelerating.
I mean, we see this in our pieces.
I'm like, we just did a website project a couple of years ago.
It was painful.
We're gonna have to do one again.
It's just the nature of the world today.
So for economic developers,
the website has to stay up to date.
That doesn't just mean look and feel.
Of course, that's crucial as well,
but it means keeping your latest data,
your latest story on your website,
presenting your strengths.
So that's a never ending need
that economic developers have.
Again, it sounds obvious,
but you really can't repeat it enough.
And then the last thing I'd say is
site readiness has become crucial in recent years.
We all know this speed has never been more important
in economic development.
So be ready to respond on short notice
with detailed information for your best sites.
Have it in hand ahead of time.
Don't wait for the inquiry before you go round up
the information.
Have it prepared, ready to go.
We talked to a site selector about this a few months back
and got a pretty interesting quote.
He said to us, you know,
it doesn't help when I call the economic developer
and they tell me, oh yeah,
I'll get back to you in a week with this stuff.
They want to see it immediately.
Nate now expects you to have it.
It's just part of the game.
So those sound like obvious pieces of advice,
but as I mentioned,
they really bear repeating because they're so crucial
for the first steps,
the most important steps of the site selection process.
You're so right about all of those,
especially websites.
That is one of the things.
It sounds like kind of a simple thing to have said,
but not every, you know,
there's a variance of how well,
you know, variants of websites that exist out there,
but it is so crucial because look,
I mean, that's your first site visit.
That's where consultants are enterprise.
That's where they're going.
They need to see everything that they need to see.
So yes, keep those websites where they need to be,
keep them updated because look,
I mean, everyone knows this.
If you intend to have a website out there,
people are going to it.
And the people that you want to be at are going to that.
So make sure that it's updated at every moment
and on relative speed to market, no doubt.
That has, there's speed to market
has become exponentially more important.
And it always has been.
There's the two,
there's the fact that you said,
look, you need to be ready with your data immediately.
And perhaps maybe that's a change 20, 30 years ago or so,
you know, you get facts and RFI or whatever,
you've got a handful of days or weeks to turn in.
No, now you have minutes, get it turned in,
immediately, but on the other side of that,
you have got to invest in your sites and buildings
to give enterprise site selectors quick, risk-free site selection
experiences and quickly operationalized business.
Because for all the intrinsic advantages that we have,
this is very competitive in the American South and the globe.
So business is making decisions based on speed to market
and quick operationalization.
We can get an American South product anywhere in the world.
Over night, there are a lot of communities,
a lot of opportunities to explore for enterprise.
So the places that have an A plus site and building
that have made those strategic investments,
they went out the day and we continue to see that
in what's really cool right now.
We have been communicating so much on speed to market
and product development.
And really since my time here,
but through that, you know,
just the year that I've been here,
we're seeing make multi-million dollar,
massive, massive investment,
it's in utilities and communities,
into product development initiatives
and product development strategies.
So we will continue to see smart strategic investments
being made into American South properties
and we'll continue to see ground broken because of that.
So it's so important.
So really thank you for mentioning product development,
speed to market because I didn't have that in my notes,
but it's just such a key thing
that we can continue to speak on.
Yeah, and you know,
technology can really help with this.
So if you're in a community where you've got major investment,
maybe by your state,
maybe by your utility,
your utility in major properties,
technology can make that investment come to life visually
and experientially for your site visitors,
for your prospects.
So technology can really help with this.
Now, if you're in a community
where you don't have the benefit of this massive investment
in local infrastructure that helps support
your major sites site readiness,
you simply don't have that well,
technology can help you as well
because technology now allows you to showcase properties
virtually.
So you don't have to actually have the physical investment.
Of course, that accelerates your speed to market.
That's always a good thing.
But if you don't have that in your sites,
you can still use technology, for example,
to showcase them through virtual site visits,
showcase potentially use cases,
showing virtual buildings,
all that's now doable and affordable
for even small communities.
And that's key too.
I mean, what an advantage to have
those types of resources and assets.
And you know, maybe to follow up on that,
you know, I think about if I'm a new economic developer
or if I'm someone listening to this
and I'm not in the economic development space, you know,
I hear someone like you speak.
And I just think, you know, this person,
he operates at the highest levels of business
and does economic development all over the world.
And that's, you know, and it is.
And it sounds like just a big, sophisticated,
kind of almost overwhelming thing, but it's not.
And it's not intimidating.
So especially to work with you.
So can you talk a little bit about, you know,
what's your process?
How do you work with EDOs or what does it look like?
I think maybe more importantly to work with you.
Yeah, it's actually really easy.
We do all have a lifting for clients
when we get them set up, for example.
So we have the ability to take a client site live,
meaning provide them in online sites and buildings app,
live on their website within a few hours
of signing a contract.
We've done that.
The technology is still advanced now.
Configuring is pretty straightforward.
So what we need from clients is really just a few things.
So we'll need their logo.
If they've got a CSS file showing their color scheme,
that'd be great.
If they don't know problem, we have technology now
that goes to their website and tells us
what color scheme they use.
So we don't even need them to provide their color scheme.
We can simply use that.
And then we take this information
and we configure our technology for their website.
And then they put it on their website.
And it provides data and tools for economic development.
Users, meaning the clients themselves to use,
but also for businesses and site selectors
who come to the website.
So we make it really, really simple.
And this is why even very small clients
are pretty comfortable using our technology.
I mentioned a city of 2,000 people in Texas.
That's our smallest population server.
That particular client, well, that client
doesn't even have an economic developer.
The city manager decided to license our technology
and oversees it.
And he's got a full-time job.
He does economic development on the side,
but it's also simple and easy for him
that it works really well.
I think that's really cool, really important
and meaningful, I think, to think about it.
If you can help a community curate
all of the economic development information
that they need to have and do that quickly,
that is so powerful.
But even the simple things that maybe even be missed,
you'd mention, look, we'll help you figure out
your color scheme and we'll make sure that's consistent
and that your brand is on point
because behind the curtain here,
here's the thing that Matthew Darius gets the madest
at me about, okay?
We are always pumping out stuff on social media.
You know, it's an email and this and that.
Every day we've got stuff going out.
And for whatever reason,
I struggle with getting our colors correct.
And Matthew always catches me on it.
And sometimes I'll be like, okay, I can fix that, Matthew.
But other times, you know,
I've worked on something for who knows how long
and the last thing I wanna do is
I wanna mess with the colors.
And then Matthew gets mad at me about it
and now we laugh about it all the time.
But I even think something like that
is really, really cool and meaningful for communities.
And Matthew says, look, we have a brand package for a reason.
Well, so do communities.
So same consistent,
I think it's really, really important.
Yeah, no, it's a good point.
It is important.
And that consistency plays out over time
because as users come back to your website
and they see the same things over and over,
it's going to sink in and it's going to develop over time
to be this impression, which is what a brand is.
It's really an understanding of you and your community.
Yeah.
Well, for SCDC people that are looking at our stuff
all the time, you'll notice that there's a lack of our
SCDC green in our materials.
So that's my fault.
If you are sick of the blue,
it'll probably continue on for a little bit,
but just know you have an advocate in Matthew Darius
that tells me to diversify our color scheme
as we go forward.
So you'll continue to see a little bit more of that,
but just know Matthew's working on me here.
So Ron, we're almost through here,
but I just really want to say and mention that I speak on this
and just thank you for this,
but you are not only forwarding economic development
on behalf of your communities and clients,
but you're supporting economic development organizations
all over North America.
You're a mainstay at IEDC, for example,
a mainstay throughout the States.
You're our signature investor and you're a major part
of our conferences and we just can't thank you enough for that.
You know that is so meaningful and impactful for groups
like mine and Matthews and others for us to do
what our mission is.
So thank you for being such a good supporter
and an educated asset at these types of forums,
but this is clearly important to you
and part of your strategy.
So can you maybe just speak to that for a second?
Sure.
Well, let me start by saying I love economic development
in part because it attracts people who are committed
to the profession.
I mean, nobody goes into economic development to get rich.
People do it to make the world a better place
and they want to do so by improving their communities,
which is great.
Now, there's nothing wrong with getting rich.
Please don't misinterpret what I said,
but I find that commitment that economic developers have
to their profession and their communities really inspiring.
I mean, I just love it.
So I think working with these folks in that mindset
is something that for me has been refreshing and a lot of fun.
Prior to doing this, starting in late 2016,
I spent 25 years in the energy industry
before co-founding this business.
And while I enjoy the energy industry,
I wish I had done this a lot sooner.
This has been so much fun for us,
not just because our businesses worked out well,
but just it's a refreshing change for me
and the profession I find really inspiring as I mentioned.
Yeah, I'm right there with you.
You know, I just can't think of a better profession
to be honest in the business world.
So, I mean, economic developers,
they're community advocates, champions,
but at the heart of this, they are creating opportunity,
changing lives, strengthening families, communities, states.
I just think it's such a great profession to do to be in.
That's why I'm so passionate about it.
And even more than that, so appreciative of the people
that are doing this tirelessly and relentlessly
and successfully too, in a really, really competitive,
hard to be successful market.
And we've got the successful economic developers
in SEDC and the American South.
So it's just such a really cool, awesome thing to be a part of.
So thanks for mentioning that.
And, you know, we're gonna transition here.
We've dug into a lot of weeds with you.
And this has been really, really fascinating.
So we've enjoyed the education and just learning about
your journey and what you do.
But we've been pretty nice here.
And these have been some softball questions, to be honest.
So it's time to get real.
It's time to put you on the research,
unsensored seat, sponsored by our great friends
at ResearchFDI.
ResearchFDI is a trusted investment attraction
and trade development partner.
They work all over the world.
Our listeners know Bruce Tackettman, the 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 think, once a thank, ResearchFDI for sponsoring
what is the former hot seat segment.
But Matthew, Ron, here comes the spooky music.
Ron, are you ready to go on the research
unsensored seat?
All right, now, if I get a question I don't like,
I'm gonna blame Bruce.
Bruce is a friend, so I'll let him know.
There we go, we'll see him too in a couple of months.
It's like USA, so, Bruce, just so you know,
we're coming for you if this doesn't go well.
But thank you for sponsoring this.
But Ron, first, who would play you in a movie?
Well, any movie about me would have to be a comedy,
so I'm gonna go with Steve Carell.
Oh, I see that.
Kind of the voice a little bit too,
but he's one of my favorite people.
Were you...
I don't know, the office is one of my all time favorite TV shows.
Me too, me too.
I still watch it.
Matthew is shaking his head, are you big fan,
office fan Matthew?
Oh yeah, the office and the small thing we pull are...
Parks and rec.
Parks and rec, yeah.
Yeah, I loved Parks and Rec.
So, office is one of my favorite all time shows,
but I'm gonna say something controversial here.
Obviously, it was better with Steve Carell.
That was, it was what it was.
But I liked the two seasons after that too, just fine.
You know, I know a lot of office purists don't,
but I liked the last two seasons.
Will Ferrell and Andy Bernard, whatever his name is,
I thought that was fine.
Did you guys like the last two?
They weren't the best, they weren't the worst.
Yeah, I agree with Matthew.
That's saying they were good, but not as good as the original cast.
Yeah, I agree.
But at least you all were kind of on my page.
A lot of people that are crazy about the office,
just know that those seasons aren't for them.
Okay, Ron, moving on here.
So, okay, so we always,
we like to have airport conversations on the podcast.
So, we always like to ask people,
okay, where's your favorite airport in the American South?
But you like, you know, Bruce Tachiman,
we changed the question for him as well.
You know, you're kind of a different beast here.
You're working all over the world.
So, where's your favorite airport in general,
and not just in the American South?
Well, I flan in and out of Atlanta all the time.
That's the busiest airport in the world by passenger account.
It's just enormous and incredibly crowded all the time.
So, I've got to go with something at the other end of a spectrum.
A small airport that's super easy to get in and out of
and kind of different.
And the one that comes to mind is Provincetown, Massachusetts,
which is on the tip of Cape Cod.
And I used to fly in and come there all the time
because we had a place on Cape Cod.
And it's kind of cool because it's basically one room.
It's a tiny little one room airport.
And the planes that fly in and out of there
that show you back and forth the Boston
are these little puddle jumpers that have eight seats.
And you can actually sit in the co-pilot seat,
which I did one time.
When the plane is full,
they put somebody in the co-pilot seat,
which was me this one time.
And it's kind of funny because the captain looks over at you
with the stern look and says,
don't touch anything, you know, just before you take off.
And there's a joystick in front of you
and there's pedals on the floor
and you're just trying not to touch anything.
It's actually kind of a fun experience.
Yeah, I bet.
So, is that the jump seat?
Is that what they refer to?
Now, the jump seat is in a big commercial plane,
a separate seat that doesn't have to do with flying the plane.
This is actually the co-pilot seat.
You're sitting there right next to the captain
with all the controls right in front of you.
Okay, how cool.
That is really cool.
No, I was asking because I have family,
it's in the airline business and pilots.
And I can remember before 9-11,
there was some sort of family flyer program
that you could get tickets to go somewhere.
And if the plane was sold out,
there was whatever the jump seat is,
that was always gonna be available to people
like me or family or whatever.
I never got to sit in it,
but I never knew what that was either.
So that was the question there,
but thanks for telling me.
I think that those types of programs
have since been removed post 9-11.
Okay, so Massachusetts, Matthew and I can get up there
and check that one out.
What is your favorite hobby?
A couple of things, I love the outdoors.
So I love to camp, hunt and fish.
And I also play a lot of tennis.
So those come to mind immediately.
Okay, as you heard earlier,
I consider myself an amateur geologist and geochemist.
I kind of try to keep an eye on what's going on with that stuff,
and I'm pretty out of date now.
Yeah, well, yeah, you can see I do too,
the old bad movies.
So yeah, Matthew and I will need to play some tennis
with you before too long.
I think we're pretty good.
I think we could take the Bratacey family on
if you wanna try that in Atlanta.
All right, we'll do it.
Okay, and maybe we'll play that game.
We'll connect this next question to it.
Maybe have some Kentucky bourbon
involved in our tennis match too,
but what's your favorite Kentucky bourbon?
Oh, great question.
So I'm a bourbon guy, I love bourbon.
And my favorite is Weller Reserve,
which is not super expensive, but hard to find.
One of my sons got me a bottle for Christmas
and it's sitting in my cupboard waiting for my two boys
to come home when their home will share in it together.
Wow, yeah, that is so cool.
Some of those bourbon's they are so hard to find.
And I was before I came to SCDC.
I led the Kentucky Association for Economic Development.
We did a ton of business development.
We represented the entire state too.
So and we were in Frankfurt,
kind of around a lot of distilleries
that put out a lot of product people were wanting.
I would get calls all the time,
hey, Matt, can you get me a bottle of X?
No, I couldn't.
And we were partners with a lot of the distilleries,
but some of those things are hard to get.
And I would even tell people sometimes,
I would try and every now and then I would be successful,
but I found, look, why don't you call a hotel?
Because they typically have those things.
They'll sell it to you for maybe whatever a shot
would call us, which is really expensive.
But that was my work around sometimes.
Huh, interesting.
Okay, so we're excited to welcome the fourth guest
on the podcast here, the dog that I had barking
in my living room.
So sorry about that, members,
but maybe that don't be alleviated here in a sec,
but Ron, we'll see you at SelectUSA.
And we've mentioned that,
and you know Bruce Tackettman too.
So this question kind of has to do with him a little bit,
but we know of a great little karaoke party
with consultants and enterprise off the books
on SelectUSA coming up.
And hopefully you and I both are there,
but if it's your turn to sing,
what's the song you're picking?
Well, Matt, you really don't want me to sing, believe me,
you don't, I could pick a song for somebody else to sing,
but the last thing you want is for me to sing.
Even at karaoke, even at karaoke,
believe it, you don't want me to sing.
Me too, I really shouldn't say this because
for whatever reason, especially in Kentucky
and a little bit here too,
karaoke is just kind of like a thing
that people like to do that I'm finding in this profession.
Not me, I'll go and I'll watch everybody and I'll love it,
but I do not want to get up there.
I can be dragged to do like, let's last call
and here's everybody, like 20 of us get up there
and I'll sit in the black and kind of pretend to sing,
but I'd rather watch too, me and you can do that.
Well, for me, it's less to do a stage fright
and more to do with the fact that I have just
the horrible singing voice, just was born that way.
So I love music and I'll sing in the shower
like everybody else and I'll sing when I'm driving the car
going down the road, but you don't want me to sing
in front of people, my voice is just not made for that.
Mine to you, but I do enjoy just kind of watching people
kind of put themselves out there like that.
You know, on select USA, we have a booth as well
and I know what you do and we actually had a lot
of conversation about you when we were picking our booth.
We knew where you were, we needed to land
where our booth was going to be as well.
So there was a little clump around you
that had an opening still and there was a clump
on the other side.
So I asked Matthew, well, where should we go?
What would be the most strategic?
Matthew said, you need to be over there by wrong on that.
So I didn't in that little desk clump,
but when we got to picking it, I don't know if maybe
that was gone or if I decided to be next to the Kentucky
and because that's where we happened to be
and they have a big bourbon reception.
Maybe I thought for the traffic or whatever,
but I wish we could have been next to you,
but we'll be on the other side of the exhibit hall
and look forward to that.
Well, I understand being next to Kentucky's
Kentucky exhibit because they had a great bourbon,
you know, sipping session last year, which was,
it was my first time I selected USA last year
and I couldn't believe I did that.
I was just, it was so much fun.
You just said they gathered everybody basically
over at their exhibit and worked really well.
It's amazing.
I used to be a big part of putting Kentucky's
select USA event together, but the bourbon reception
used to be just such a massive massive foot driver
and we would do it right there in the booth.
The, I think the Porter-Reekins exhibit,
the Puerto Rico exhibits as well and they have rum
or whatever their drink is and they always have it out.
And that's huge too.
So wherever they are and the Kentucky
is kind of a good spot to be.
Yeah.
Okay, so we're almost off the research on censored seats.
So another easy one here.
How do people get in touch with you
and what conferences will you be at
over the next couple of months?
Well, I'm easy to read.
Just send me an email.
Happy to, happy to converse with anybody
in the profession at all.
Now on any topic, happy to help anyway I can.
My email is very simple.
It's Ron at GISwebtech.com.
Couldn't be easier.
In terms of conferences, we went to 16 last year.
This year it's gonna be between 20 and 25.
Conferences are a big thing for us.
Our technology is visual and so we'd love
to go to conferences and get it on a screen
so people can see it.
So conferences are a big thing for us.
We also love to participate in conferences
and that's one of the reasons we're so excited
to work with you guys with SEDC
and be actively engaged with you at SEDC events.
We find participating is just a great way
to build relationships obviously
and start discussions on crucial issues.
So as I said, 20 to 25 this year,
I just got back from the New York State Conference last week.
Before that I was in Ontario at the provincial conference.
In the next few months, we're gonna be in Virginia
at their state conference.
We're gonna be in Alberta at the provincial conference.
We're gonna be at TVA's conference.
We're gonna be at the Florida conference.
We're gonna be at the SEDC Meet the consultants event,
which we're really excited about.
It'll be our first time there.
And we're gonna be at the Georgia conference.
Now all of that is just through May.
That's just the next six or seven weeks
and we've got many more continuing on through the fall after that.
So we look forward to attending these conferences
are always a great experience for us
and a chance to get to know people across the country
and really talk about the details of economic development.
Yeah, well, thanks for supporting some of the associations
in the south as well.
And definitely thanks for supporting us, CDC.
By the time this thing is released,
we'll have put out the Meet the consultants agenda.
So Ron will be all over that one.
He'll also be an exhibitor there in the exhibition hall.
So we can't wait to see you there.
And hopefully, you know, I'll be at some of those events too.
And we'll get to have some fun at some different,
you know, non-SEDC events.
But thank you, Ron, for joining the conference.
Thank you, Ron, for joining the podcast.
You made it. You're off the hot seat.
What'd you think?
Ah, enjoy it.
It was a great time.
Love the discussion, guys.
If we can help with anything else you're doing anyway,
just let me know.
Yeah, you're the best.
Thank you so much for being a great partner to us.
More importantly, thank you for being such a great partner
to economic developers and communities all across the American south.
We know how busy you are and how busy you stay.
So thanks for having some fun with us.
Thanks for really laying out so many great educated points.
Thank you for joining the research on sinceard seat too.
We always find that a lot of fun.
And that happens to be one of the things we get the most feedback on.
So thank you so much, Ron.
Thank you, Matthew Darius.
Before we leave, we invite listeners to check out the SEDC website
at www.scdc.org and follow us closely on social media.
We want our members part of everything we do.
To get plugged in, reach out to us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook,
email or give us an old-fashioned phone call.
And while you're checking us out,
why don't you go ahead and register for the American South site selection summit
on May 8th and night in Atlanta.
So thank you, SEDC.
Join us next time on the SEDC podcast presented by Insight.
♪♪♪