Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the Leadership Window podcast with Doctor Patrick Jinks. Each week, through a social sector lens, Patrick interviews leaders and experts and puts us in touch with trends and tips for leading effectively. Patrick is a board certified executive coach, a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, a best selling author, award winning photographer, and a professional speaker. And now here's doctor Patrick Jinks.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Hello everyone. Hello everyone. Welcome to the leadership window. I am doctor Patrick Jinks. Glad to be along with you. This is a fun week because we are once again taking this podcast on the road. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner, but not too long ago I purchased some mobile equipment that I can easily take with me. We did a podcast at the ball game the other day. I hope you heard that one. Go back and listen to that one. That was Charles Weather's second or third time on the show and we did it at the Columbia Fireflies baseball game. And we did one from Miami a few months ago with Ashley Greetley at caring for Miami. I think this might be the third one we've done. I'm in Abingdon, Virginia right now as I speak. That is in rural southwest Virginia and it's, it's God's country if you ask me. It's beautiful up here. A lot of you have been to this area. Every time I tell people I'm going to Abingdon, they go, oh, that's such a beautiful area. And it's right near the Tennessee border and just right here near Bristol. And it's just a beautiful, beautiful place. And sitting here in Abingdon, Virginia is an organization that is in a lot of communities across the country. And the organization is United Way. United Way of Southwest Virginia has been here for a number of years in this community doing what most people understand united ways to do. But a number of years ago, when Travis Staton, our guest today, came on board and started leading this organization, he took United way here to a level that I often describe as one. I just don't see much across the country. And I've worked, I have my own United Way background, you know, spanning two decades. I've worked with a ton of United ways throughout the years and I can truly say this United Way here in Abingdon is one unique organization.
And we're going to talk a little bit about the evolution of United Way that has led to the formation of a new organization, a new entity in Abingdon and in the region called EO. We'll get to the title and what EO is and how they came up with that name, but EO is, I guess we will call it a child of United Way.
An idea, a concept that has morphed out of United Way thanks to United Way's brand position in the community, to become an organization now that can really expand its wings and its footprint and its work in ways that engages potentially nationwide partners, certainly regional wide partners. But it has been under the leadership of Travis Staton that this grand idea has now come to reality. I'm sitting in Travis's office at the newly minted EO facility, which is a combination of lots of things. I'm not going to describe it here. I'm going to let Travis describe it to you, but it is state of the art. It is nice. It is the kind of thing that the social sector deserves in order to provide excellence when delivering on a mission. So let's talk mission. Let's talk leadership. Let's talk what it has taken in leadership to get to this point, because Travis is one of those people I talk about a lot. This organization is an organization I tell a lot of people about because I've watched firsthand the growth in leadership. So Travis, by the way, if you, if you see him or see his picture, you know, you'll think, well, wait a minute, Travis doesn't have 20 years in anything. He's only 24 to begin with, but he's an old soul in some ways. But Travis, I gotta tell you, I'm super. I don't know why this took so long, but I'm glad we were finally able to work this out, get you on this program, because I want our audience to hear directly from someone who I truly believe to be just an extraordinary leader. I've watched it, I've admired it, I've learned from it. And so thank you for engaging me so much in your work over the last few years and for carving out a little bit of time and space for us on a busy day to join us on the show. Welcome.
[00:04:50] Speaker C: Absolutely. Thank you, Patrick. I'm thrilled to be here today and excited to have this conversation.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Well, you're thrilled to be here because we're in your office.
It's great that you're thrilled to be in your own office. I know you're thrilled to be in this new building.
[00:05:04] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Let's just start there. We'll talk about EO and who that is. But let's describe this building we're in. You opened, has it been a month now?
[00:05:11] Speaker C: No, just recently. Probably moved in about two weeks ago, got an official certificate of occupancy, is a former 87,000 square foot retail facility, actually a former big box Kmart that we have converted through adaptive reuse, a $26.5 million initiative to convert this center into a regional workforce and child development hub serving numerous parts of southwest Virginia with critical infrastructure and workforce necessities such as childcare, career exploration, and hands on learning for k twelve students, partnerships with businesses and adults, and employment services. But all kinds of things that you couldn't possibly imagine being under one roof in a facility such as this and all the state of the art innovations and technologies and things that are under this roof.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: When was the groundbreaking I came to? I try to remember when it was. Was it in the. When was that? Because you had the governor here and a lot of, you know, sort of big leaders across the state were here for the groundbreaking. But remind me when that was.
[00:06:16] Speaker C: We did the groundbreaking back in 2000. 820 23. We've been working on this for more than a year now and hosted that around the early July timeframe.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: I'm asking because I came to the groundbreaking, and when I came, I barely stepped inside. It was a shell. It was a gutted shell. I might have had some studs up somewhere or something, but it was just the old brick building, and it hadn't been remodeled. Nothing had been done to it, really, that you could tell. And I remember thinking, and I remember you saying you thought we were crazy. Well, I thought you were crazy to think when you could move into this building, and here you are, and you're in it earlier than I think. Even your. Even the timeline you gave, you even made it earlier. So I don't know. One of the first things I might want to know about leadership is how did you. I mean, you got to see this building, folks. It's massive.
[00:07:14] Speaker C: You said 87,000.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: 87,000. Now, is it all finished out?
[00:07:18] Speaker C: It's all finished, yeah. Every bit of it has a purpose and a plan and is being utilized.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Unbelievable.
[00:07:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: How did you do? I mean, that's faster work than most projects I've seen.
[00:07:29] Speaker C: Well, this project wasn't born overnight. It had been conceptualized for quite some time as far as the thought of researching and finding an official final home for some programmatic activities that needed to take place consistently in the region. But coming out of the pandemic, we got familiar utilizing the facility. During the pandemic, we were using it kind of as an emergency operations center, using it for logistical supply chain management, doing PPE, and all kinds of other things for the federal government and emergency management, and all kinds of things that I won't bore you with, but the facility itself. We took about six months to really do a design build initiative where you work hand in hand with the architect as well as the general contractor to design the space.
Immediately following that, we began demolition construction.
We, during that time, were raising the $26.5 million capital stack, which we have successfully been able to do. But it's been a true public private partnership. But although we are a nonprofit organization, we're still a private corporation. And sometimes private organizations just move a little faster and expediently than sometimes the public governmental sector can.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: That's true. Now, you talk about the 26 million in capital. Are you telling me that there's no debt in this building? I mean, is it all essentially paid for?
[00:09:02] Speaker C: It is. Well, there were some multi year gifts that were committed and made, so there is kind of a loan involved as we receive those contributions.
Pay it down, basically, but basically committed.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Where'd the money come from?
[00:09:15] Speaker C: Phenomenal. Well, 80% of that investment was from private sources, private donors, businesses, individuals, foundations. With only 20%, let's say, $5 million, was from public. Public funds, governmental grants, which is amazing, but also speaks volumes to the areas of focus and the purpose of the building and how timely and how much need is there for that type of investment to be done in such a rural part of Virginia?
[00:09:44] Speaker B: The public funds is that local and.
[00:09:47] Speaker C: State, mostly state funds. We received a grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. They have an industrial revitalization fund that they were able to contribute and invest $5 million into the project to help us get over that final stretch with the other 21.5 million that we had committed to the project. That was leadership from the state. The governor has been very active and involved and touts this initiative as a model for the rest of the Commonwealth to see and implement as well.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Well, the first lady does as well and has championed this. I know and been very engaged in some of your work, and you've engaged cabinet members and legislators, and you've had a lot of state support for this, which I think is part of the whole design, is to maybe expand this. Just talk a little bit about how would you. How would you, in a nutshell, describe why this exists. You were united way had already grown into a place of holding a lot of these programs around, getting the workforce ready for the future and early childhood, and, you know, helping middle schoolers and high schoolers get, you know, implemented into the community.
How would you basically describe the notion that we needed this new entity now to take it to an even greater scale.
[00:11:09] Speaker C: Yeah, well, there's a lot of complexities to that.
One particular area is just when you think about designing a portfolio of community programming and services based on attracting, retaining, and growing one of the best workforces in America, that's what we want to do.
We have high rates of poverty, we have low labor participation, and we need higher paying jobs. And we need to get those folks that can get off the sidelines back into the labor force and into the workforce. In doing that, we have essential programs and services and partnerships. But they were sporadic. They were based on availability of other facilities, and we needed a place to not only provide the programs, but consistently more in depth to more audiences and more of level of quality. So being able to work with these public private partners, coming out of the pandemic and knowing one of our main strategic areas is let's get people back to work, that is one of the best things we can do for our economy, for our community. So what does that mean? One, we found out most employers in our region were experiencing shortages and lack of access to childcare. It's unfortunate that Southwest Virginia had the largest gap in the state, roughly about 29%, versus a statewide average of 11% of shortage of childcare. And we found that that's one of the biggest reasons people are sitting on the sidelines. So part of the 87,000 sqft there is 25,000 sqft dedicated to a new state of the art early care and education center, 21 classrooms providing care to children from birth to age four for 300 children in this region, which is essential to helping those parents now retain a job, get to work, have a safe, reliable place for their child. It is also a big part of our strategy for the workforce of tomorrow. One of the best investments we can make is helping children get a great start to life and be prepared for kindergarten. And doing that through early childhood care and education is one of the most efficient, effective investments.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: From afar have thought it's one of the more genius things that you've done in messaging alone, because, and I will tell you, united ways and many organizations focus on early childhood education. I believe in it. I love it. I see the value of it. But people hear early childhood education, they think kids and babies and start to school, and yes, they care. You tied it to workforce. And it reminded me at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville, where I was for a while with the United Way, we had the foundation there, brought Vaughn Grisham to town. Vaughn Grisham. He is John Grisham, the author's cousin, for those who might be interested in knowing that. But he was a professor, I think, at Mississippi State or University of Mississippi. I always forget which one. Sociology work there, and a researcher and an author. And he came and spoke on things like neighborhood revitalization. And he challenged the group of hundreds in the room at the institute. He said, what do you believe is the number one driver of the workforce economy and its success? And people were raising their hands. Well, it's availability of jobs, or it's being free from issues like drugs and poverty, or it's the quality of this, that and the other. And, and everybody was wrong. And he said, no, the number one driver of the workforce is early childhood development and education, because you're thinking about now, you're thinking about that in that new small business microbrewery downtown, or you're thinking about Goodyear wanting to come in and expand their plant today. What you're not thinking about is that 20 years from now, the people you hire are not going to be ready if they don't get the kind of start they need. And when you tied it to workforce, correct me if I'm wrong, when you successfully made that tied to workforce, the attention with the state rural summit and the state government and all the donors and sponsors and partnerships that you got, to me, that's what, that's the uniqueness, because I know a lot of organizations focused on early childhood.
[00:15:45] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah, I think there's definitely a business case for that. And also, again, coming out of the pandemic, it's unfortunate that that also shed light on the importance of early childhood care and education for infrastructure. I mean, when we think about development in parts of America, we're thinking about plat development, broadband, natural gas, interstates, railroads. Where's the inland port? We're never saying, where are the people? Where's the human capital? Where's the childcare for these employees? How is that working on the future workforce and talent pipelines for that employer and supporting the national workforce for that. So there's lots of overlapping parts to that. But it is kind of a two pronged approach. One, the now workers that have care or that have children need that care. But outside of that, it is the most and best investment, I believe, that you can make in the educational system is upfront of the continuum, not putting all our eggs in the basket up at the end.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's harder to do, and in some cases, it's. It's impossible to do in, in the moment. If you're far enough behind and you don't have the skills and the education and the resilience, the social capabilities to have a job and things like that. Those are. Those are things that matter. United Way, moving forward, what's their role now in the community?
[00:17:17] Speaker C: Yeah, well, United Way has had tremendous success over the nearly two decades of opportunity that I've been blessed to be a part of. Growing the organization into a community impact organization, growing an organization into not the status quo and looking differently and going upstream and getting ahead of these things, not just treating symptoms and putting band aids, but being more hands on and understanding those issues and making investments and building collaboration and partnership around that, that they have successfully birthed and borne this new organization called EO, which is a spin off nonprofit of the programmatic arm of the United Way of Southwest Virginia to oversee community impact work and programmatic work in workforce development and education and wellbeing of communities. And that enables this organization to really put concentrated effort into that continual work. But it now also enables United Way to look at the next obstacle, the next challenge in southwest Virginia, the next key piece of the portfolio of the community that needs to be addressed, and that could be housing, that could be substance abuse. There's all kinds of other things that need to be addressed. And so now United Way has that unique ability. They're doing strategic planning right now to say, what's next and where are we going to focus next, and what's the next EO in the next decade that we need to build?
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Not to mention that they can continue to partner with you in the work that they've helped birth. Right? It's not like we go our separate ways.
[00:19:04] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: It's a partnership there, and that was built in and designed in to begin with. So, yeah, I think that's the beauty of United Way, and a lot of it is that the brand value they hold and the positioning that they started doing, you know, at the turn of the millennium around convening and bringing cross sector partners together to address community problems, which is going beyond what United Way had traditionally done, which is raise money each year and hand it out to 20 or 30 nonprofit agencies and let them do the work. So I think they're still perfectly positioned to do that, which I think is cool. Eo. Where's the name come from?
[00:19:41] Speaker C: EO is Latin for go.
It has been highly studied, highly thought through. Internally, it wasn't a rush decision, but also really stands for the endless opportunities that lie ahead in our region and our state and our country.
We want to focus on improving educational and economic opportunities for everyone. So when you think about EO, we believe so much in educational and economic opportunities. We named ourselves Eo, but it is Latin for go. It is a newly evolving nonprofit organization that will research, pilot and scale big ideas into local community solutions through those public private partnerships, through that collaboration and partnership with numerous people, organizations and institutions to really increase the wellbeing of communities in which we live and serve.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: So I'm going to set you up to brag about yourself, because I know you love that. I know you're going to want to be modest on this question, but I go is a perfect word that I think matches the leadership you've brought to the table. Because it hasn't been status quo. It hasn't just been, let's maintain a little united way here and do a thing and retire one day. You have been on go, you have a bent for go.
Speed has been a thing. Change has been a thing. When I met you, we actually met at United Way worldwide back in 2005 or six or somewhere around there. And then I became engaged with you for the first time because you were leading disaster relief efforts and recovery efforts here in Abingdon during the tornado of what year was that? Oh.
[00:21:35] Speaker C: Would have been around zero seven.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Seven or zero eight or something like that. And we came over and, you know, tried to offer a hand on a weekend. I. And all of that, you had at that time, three staff.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: Three staff.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Three staff. And today you have.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: EO has almost. At 50.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Eos at almost 50. I know. I met with every single one of them today. It was great. We did some culture mapping today, which we'll get into.
So the growth in scale and in work and this new facility and adding on programs and innovations and ideas, that's a hard thing to lead in a community where you have to get consensus, you have to get critical mass of partnership momentum. You have to have a staff that's resilient and can pull off what you're throwing at them every day. More and more and more and more. I'm curious to know what have been the leadership competencies or tenets or strengths that you've had to rely on the most as you've taken this from a small, three person, fairly traditional, United Way to where it is today. Where this organization is today.
[00:22:52] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: What are you leaning on?
[00:22:53] Speaker C: Well, I mean, it's been quite a journey to go from a former three person organization serving one county to an.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Organization on a budget, by the way.
[00:23:08] Speaker C: Of what, probably around $300,000 a year. That's important to note before the spin off of EO was pushing about a $13 million a year budget serving 21 municipalities, and has went through ten mergers and acquisitions to build essentially the United Way of Southwest Virginia, which was designed to help build that capacity. Because when you're changing the business model and you're going upstream, and it's not just about the lean, mean fundraising machine, it's more about what are we doing with those dollars? How are we investing in the future? How are we being more preventative than reactive? But that requires a different skill set. That requires understanding community need, understanding, consensus building, understanding subject matter, experts in education and well being and resources, dollars, an accounting department, marketing, all those things. So combining resources, combining united ways to be stronger, but still interconnected, still localized down at the community level. I mean, that's what United ways are known very well for, is their localness and their ability to respond to those local needs. But change management is really big. You got to be able to go with that. The persistence, the marathon, not the sprint. But when you think about merging ten united ways over the course of a twelve year period, most united ways have the leadership of the top officials and leaders in their communities. They're very powerful sometimes they are very opinionated, very territorial, very we want what's best for our town and our zip code and our community. So being able to cast vision and show that, you know, we can be really loud if we're all singing, but if we're all singing from the same sheet of music, we can not only be loud, but we can be understood, we can be heard. We can leverage our collective resources, our investments to outside state dollars, federal dollars, because rural communities need that. And I think we've showed proof of concept in that. But change management is a big leadership competency that you have to have that persistentness, but also being able to consensus build, to not only cast that vision, but manage the ability to bring parties together, to say, wow, we could be stronger if we work together. But let me also mention in the middle of all these changes that were going on over the years, not just building a more stronger back office for United Way, we were changing our business model. We were nothing, just making what someone said the old approach was, spray and pray. We make a lot of grants to a lot of nonprofits, and we hope really good things happen. We were narrowing the scope. We were concentrating more on result based funding, not just outputs, but outcomes. Why did someone come to the food bank? When they came to the food bank, did we teach them how to budget? Did we help them get a job? Did we help them write a resume or get their GED? No. Old model was we helped them get that food. All great, but going that step above and beyond is really critical in that.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Where were you before United Way?
[00:26:47] Speaker C: What was your background before private sector? I was formerly did some work for the private sector, contract work for local governments and conferencing management. And then when I graduated school or college, I worked formerly in the retail industry and managed retail stores.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Well, I ask because, not to harp on this, I said it tongue in cheek earlier, and I don't mean this insulting or condescending, but when you got to United Way, you were young.
[00:27:18] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: And I'm, no, I'm asking because what you're talking about here, you're talking about change management and understanding business models and building consensus and bringing on partners. Understanding financial model. Where did you learn that?
Because you, you had a lot of it. I'm sure you had to learn.
[00:27:38] Speaker C: Along the way.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Along the way. But, you know, what would you credit as being the core of your learning? You know, was it, was it MBA school? Was it just there? Was it the, something about the retail and the way it ran? Where would you say the core preparation occurred for you?
[00:27:55] Speaker C: You know, when I first came into the nonprofit health and human service sector, I thought, oh, United Way, they do great work and they need to raise resources. Had a former sales and marketing background and I saw, oh, I can sell real easily. Little did I know giving and selling an intangible product of something you can't touch and feel that it's well being, it's good community outcomes, it's low crime, it's reading proficiency isn't the same as putting something on the item on the shelf and saying, it's $0.99, it's on sale, let's sell the world of them.
There was a lot of trial and error, but I will credit coming from a business background. I believe too many nonprofit leaders get so tied into the work and the impact that they forget the other side. If the business model isn't there nor work to amplify, to create the capacity to perform the mission, the mission doesn't get done as a business.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Everybody rewind 30 seconds and listen to that statement five times. Because that, I don't think you could have said that any better. And that is the unfortunate truth in the social sector, is it's a lot of caring and compassion and passion for creating social change.
And so that mindset, and it's charitable and it's nonprofit, and so do we do, and it's not, by the way. It's not always the executive directors that lack the ability to understand that. It's often the boards who run businesses, and they think that when they come into the boardroom, they're not running a business anymore, they're running a charity. And it's different.
[00:29:44] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: You really nailed it on that one, for sure. The other thing you've invested in a lot is your people leadership development.
We spent a day here today, a full day, with the entire team, letting them, asking them to design, literally design the kind of organizational culture they want here. And so you've lifted them, you've invested in them. What brought you that, because that's something that's missing a lot in all sectors, is people's people think that, that leadership development space is fluff and we don't have the money and the time for that. We got to just get about the work and do your job and all of that. So what drives that for you?
[00:30:33] Speaker C: Yeah, and honestly, it doesn't work if you think that way.
Talent is everything to our organization. Not only do you have to have the subject expertise and the folks that know are knowledgeable and can do that, but we are growing. We are building from within. I have seen people come into the organization and have went from administrative positions all the way up to management positions.
But I think the work that we do is so complicated and so complex. I used to say when I first joined United Way years ago, so it took me as a then two person organization serving one county with the $300,000 budget, it took me twelve months to absorb the bit everything United Way did. It took me another twelve months to understand it. And at the end of that 24 months, I started making changes and moving. What our work is, is so complicated. We don't have the luxury to bring a new person on every six weeks and train them up very easily and then hold them for twelve months and then they move on. We need a talented group of associates of employees that are dedicated to the mission. But the marathon and bringing, I mean, we're growing, but investing in our people and investing in their growth and growing our own has been very successful for.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: This organization through successes or failures or whatever else. What would you say are one or two key things you've learned the most in this journey with, with United Way and EO.
About leadership?
[00:32:27] Speaker C: About leadership? Well, I would say through success. Relationships are extremely important.
No matter what background you have, what work you do, relationships are important.
Relationships are what make you, and what make your work and your organization. And I think being able to treat others with respect, but also build that holistic collaboration and cast vision.
I still say a lot of times people are so focused on the day to day, they don't vision what it can be and where it could go and what impact really could be made.
My staff used to say, you're not allowed to go on trips to Richmond anymore because when you get 10 hours of windshield time going, 5 hours up, 5 hours back, you come back with all these big ideas and big things to do.
You have to do that. You have to dream big, but you also have to have that team and that leadership to see it through and be persistent as could be. And so I think that project management skill is in leadership arena is something that's been very much self taught. Understanding how to monitor things, establish things, see them through, stay on top of them, watch the data, the work that's being done, but flexibility, adaptation, there is no straight path anywhere in anything that's done. So I think there's a lot of things I could say credit on that side. As far as learning through difficulty and trial and error, there's always been fun things, I would say being a 20 something year old CEO of a nonprofit organization, managing a 70 some million dollar natural disaster that destroyed 200 homes, multiple businesses, and were tasked with volunteer coordination, donations, management, case management. We were the hub of every bit of that recovery for a 24 month period, repairing, rebuilding more than 114 homes. And I remember all these numbers because I remember doing it.
It's hard. And being able to learn by trial and error, dealing with communications, dealing with doing too much, dealing with hiccups, biting off more than you can chew. I think there's a lot of things there, but I always remember as well, you can't let your learnings and your roadblocks and your misfortunes keep you down and hold you back. You gotta. It'll learn from the bad and move forward.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: Looking at your leadership over the 20 years or so, anything you would do different, anything today, you sit and go, you know, I would have done this maybe a little different now.
[00:35:41] Speaker C: Knowing what I know now, that's a difficult question. I think there, I think I would have thought more about where maybe our visions weren't even big enough then that realizing where things could go, what impact we could make. And this is not about building a monstrosity of a nonprofit. This is not about empire building and all of those things. This is really about bringing meaningful impact to a community. But I would say realizing what space is available there for nonprofits, sometimes they say well, that's not our work or that's not our mission. Well, what's holding you back?
Why can't it be your work or your mission?
[00:36:34] Speaker B: That's good. That's good. I think we could use a lot more of that in the sector. One of the things that your staff came up with today on culture mapping is that we want an environment where we believe in ourselves and others. We believe. We believe, hey, we belong here. We have leadership, we have talent, we have gifts. We have contribution to bring to the table. We have value. We can influence policymakers. We can hold summits and have the governor and the cabinet, and we can get the attention of people. And I think that belief, I love that they brought that out today in the culture mapping, because you've been doing it.
[00:37:11] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I think that's when you think about the team and you think about the chemistry. I mean, we've got folks from all walks of life, all backgrounds and all different disc profiles and everything to think about. But how does all of that chemistry mix? But I can confidently say everyone in this organization, I believe, shares the belief that there's a better tomorrow. And I think we've also realized, coming from rural Virginia years ago, when we think about your other question of what would you change? I think we used to say, well, we need to change. We need to bring change. I don't know if it's change or if it's much as improvement. We live in one of the best places in the country and we just.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Need to do what we're doing better.
[00:38:01] Speaker C: Yeah. We're not. We're not trying to change who we are. We want to be who we are. We are great culture, great community, great environment. We just got some challenges that we need to work through and improve upon. So having that team, when you think about that belief, this is home. And they have family here, they have future family here, and they want what's best for home. They're not even thinking about themselves. They're thinking about their community, their fellow neighbor, their schools, their employers. They're in it for them because this is home.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: Wow. What's the challenge of leadership that you face with 50 people now and growing? Yeah. Knowing that in just a few years, it could be 150 people, I mean, you are growing.
It's different than running a shop of three people.
[00:38:57] Speaker C: It is, and I would say tremendous growth very rapidly, and we've been able to adequately manage that.
I would say with the creation of EO and where we're going, I believe to say, people say, man, you've spent a few years and built this beautiful capacity to deliver upon impact. But I would say I feel like we're just getting started because we're now just positioning the organization, this new entity, to be able to expand its work, deepen the work. When we think about a cradle to career continuum, it's as deep as it is wide. There's lots of things we need to do, but we also need to bring scale. So I'm anticipating rapid growth.
We were very successful in creating that collaboration, those localities making ourselves more attractive for state investment, but that can happen at the federal level too. And so we are anticipating and preparing for larger sums of investment. From governmental sources. Absolutely, but also from private sources. Because the larger we get, the more we're seen, the more we're constantly asked, can you come here? Can you do that? We'll invest and that's overwhelmingly positive. But we got to be careful and strategic in that growth as well. And so I want to be cautious that we're thinking about the exhaustion of growth, growth, growth. And we just need some folks that work on growth and some folks that just work on stability and the day to day and what has to happen in the other side of the organization as well.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: You had me at we're just getting started.
I love that because it could be really easy for a leader like you to set this up and say we did it.
But that's not what you're saying. You're saying, okay, now it's set up, now we can get to work, right? It's like now like the future, the possibility that we've created, now what we've created is possibility. Not that you haven't generated impact already, but the impact that's possible from here, from this platform is incredible.
[00:41:26] Speaker C: Absolutely. And I believe that folks are eager to have that. And other parts of the commonwealth, other parts of the country are watching, are learning or communicating with us or inviting us to their communities. But I believe we have proof of concept in our ecosystem and what we're building that can be applied across other communities throughout the commonwealth, throughout other states that are ways of thinking or ways of collaborating. And there's a, there's not a cookie cutter, one size fits all approach, but how we're building that collaboration and that capacity to solve those complex community issues are really fascinating and having great success.
[00:42:16] Speaker B: Wow. All right. So I was about to ask you the question, what's next? But I'm going to ask it differently.
What is for you, your next big leadership challenge? What is it you're saying? Boy, now, how do I.
Right, what's that next leadership challenge for you?
[00:42:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that is really going to be in the relevancy of the growth and how we manage organizationally, serving different municipalities, not getting over our skis that were juggling too much and not doing well. But it's more of how do we scale and bring depth to what we're doing and being able to manage a growing organization.
Let me back up and say too, we have had to build almost everything from ground up. It wasn't a 60 year organization with 50 people that we inherited. And now we're rebranding and reestablishing because of the growth the organization has had, because of the growth and facilities and people we've had to make policies, procedures.
There's all kinds of things that you have to build along the way. We've done that successfully and we've done that well here at headquarters and here in this region, in this community in which we currently operate. But it's a whole nother level. When you say, oh, now we're going to do it 8 hours down the road in a whole nother region of the state, another part or another locality, how do you do it there? But then how do you manage both of them more from an enterprise level? When we think about where we're going and what we see as scale, but also the ability to create a network of community hubs and regions that also can benefit equally from collaboration across multiple states, multiple communities for investment and support from private sector companies, but also governmental resources as well.
[00:44:33] Speaker B: Yeah, tremendous.
We could go on a long, long time and talk more about the work and the specific programs and the things that you're doing and what's next. I just want to say, truly, it's an honor to have you on the show. I have watched this. I've been, I've been incredibly awed by it, watching what you're doing. I've had the wonderful benefit of getting to work with you and your team. It's been extraordinary. And I worked a little bit with you when you were three, and now I'm working with you as you're 50 and it's fun.
A couple of questions that I like to ask all my guests before we wrap shows.
Who comes to mind as a leader in your life, personal or even from afar, who you would say has had profound impact or influence on your leadership?
[00:45:25] Speaker C: Sure. I would say an individual named Steve Smith, who is the president, CEO of a food store called KvAT Food Stores, parent firm for Food City, is, operates and owns multiple chains of grocery stores, food cities across Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, downtown.
[00:45:47] Speaker B: I meet him last year. Was he in the.
[00:45:50] Speaker C: You did.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: He was in. I know exactly who you were talking.
[00:45:53] Speaker C: And now expanding into Alabama and all that. They got their start in southwest Virginia in Grundy and a years ago, I think a piggly wiggly at the time. But when I first started with United Way, we were a staff of two $300,000 budgethouse. We were kind of going backwards and needed to change the steer of the ship in a different direction. And I remember approaching the largest employer, the most notable person in the region that could help me do that. And he took a risk by getting involved with an organization that wasn't on the right path and wasn't going in the right direction. And he's running a multibillion dollar corporation with thousands of employees. And he said yes. And not only did he say yes, he agreed to help me for two years because I needed to build in a succession plan. After I had his first year of help, I said, hey, you helped me, but I didn't build in a good succession plan. So can you do it again? But I learned a lot from him and his mentorship and his ability to work with me as a young professional in teaching me things. But I also was amazed at two things. One, how much time and commitment he would give back to his community.
And I'm always amazed when I work with our board and all these senior execs and other folks at how much they give back to the community. And we're all busy. And I say I'm busy, which I am, but I think if somebody asked me to do more in addition to my work, I don't know how I would do it. And I'm always amazed at how these folks, these men and women that are in such big roles, they find the time and they make it a priority. One, very impressive. Two, he is the leadership of his company.
His dad's philosophy was, you learn the business and you work your way up. He's been at registers, he's stocked shelves, he's ran stores, he's been regional directors, he's been bigger roles. He worked his way up through his own company, and I think about that often, and I think I've kind of worked my way up through my own company, too, although we're building it as we go. But I've been the accountant. I've done payroll, I've done grant making. I've done got the mail, did the deposit, I've done it all, it, everything. So now we're an organization of 50. We have specialists in certain areas, but I don't forget kind of the business and where we came from, and I know each end of our business. So I I appreciate that form of leadership from not just, hey, I'm at the top and I'm. I'm here. Sure. But how you got there and what, you know, going backwards, I think is very impressive from him, and it's always been inspiring and kind of has touched me in many ways.
[00:48:59] Speaker B: Well, that's a great story, and I do remember him. He was part of the business roundtable that you hold each year, and just, I remember the value he brings to those conversations and the fact that he's still engaged. So this was, what you're describing was, you know, 20 some years ago, and here he is still plugged in at different levels and what you're doing.
[00:49:16] Speaker C: And he was very supportive of this project.
And I don't mention him just because of this project, but he was actually the owner of this facility.
He's about $8 million in on this project, how much he believes in what we're doing and investing, and it's just incredible. It really is.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: Yeah. That's leadership. That's profound.
[00:49:38] Speaker C: It is.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: Great story. Last question, the easy one.
You're given a megaphone, you're put on top of a mountain. You got 15 seconds to share with all the leaders of the world who are listening at the bottom of the mountain to the Travis Staton number one tenet of leadership. What's the. What's paramount? What is that? What's that one piece of leadership that, to you, is the most important for all leaders?
[00:50:03] Speaker C: That's. That is a really difficult question. I mean, you think about all the areas and everything.
I believe it's all equally important. But. But I think being in a leadership role, you are serving in a unique capacity.
You are helping guide and cast vision and make sure everything's working. But I would believe in that leadership role, being, treating people good and how everyone has good days, they have bad days. You don't know what they're into or what's happening at home. And I just believe there's, there's not a lot of place for all the, the other bad things of being rude and mean and things of that nature. But we're all human. And I think leading through those concepts of being, treating people how you yourself would want to be treated. But I believe that is critically important.
If you do that and you're good to people and you are work hard and walk the talk, too.
I think you can do anything, but you have to be.
I remember the old african proverb, and it was kind of, if you want to go fast, run alone, but if you want to go far, run together. And I think that is critical in today's world.
Together has to happen, whether it's social media, whether it's face to face or whatever. That togetherness is what our country and what our world sometimes misses these days. And being a bridge builder, a consensus builder, respecting people, respecting different opinions, it doesn't mean you have to agree with them. But being able to be that leader that people know is a nice person that can build consensus, try to solve problems and work together, I think is, is what we're missing a lot these days. I think there's a lot of division and things of that nature, and I think I'd love to see the day we can get past that and agree to disagree or meet in the middle, whatever it is. But we, if we really want to go somewhere as a society, we, we need to. We're not going to get there alone.
[00:52:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. House divided. Not going to get there. Travis, I really appreciate that. And, you know, I would. I will say, I think this is a good close out for the show to remind our listeners that all the stuff we just talked about around consensus building and business modeling and resource development and selling what you're doing and understanding, being subject matter experts and having specialists and all this, when it came down to it, it was about being kind to people, was about relationships, which is a word you used early on in the conversation about what you've learned about leadership, that relationships have, what has been, what's helped you build the successes that you've built. And these people that are here on your team, the passion, the compassion, the talent is off the charts. And again, in their culture mapping today, one of the things that they came up with, somebody said, yeah, know, the kind of culture we want, be kind to one another.
And then at the end of the day, when they said, you know what's great about all this culture mapping? We're designing the way we want our culture to be. Most of it's already intact.
[00:54:00] Speaker C: I've heard that.
[00:54:01] Speaker B: That was, that was a great, that was a great thing to hear. Travis, keep it going, man. And as always, let me know how I can be of support in any small way to this, this thing you're doing here. Because you and your team, they know it's nothing. Just you. This, you know, we're focusing on leadership and the kind of executive leadership it takes, but you and I both know it does take, that kind of executive leadership at the top, and you're bringing it, and I love it. And I think it's a great contribution to all of our listeners out there as well, to hear just kind of what, what goes through the mind of a leader who's creating the kind of transformation you're creating. So I appreciate you being here.
[00:54:37] Speaker C: Well, thank you for having me, Patrick, and enjoyed working with you and look forward to the days ahead.
[00:54:42] Speaker B: Always. Always. All right, folks, well, take this. This is one to go back and listen to, take good notes on and just model this kind of leadership. And. Yeah, that's a good closing word for the day. Be kind to the very next person you interact with today. Just keep it in mind. Lead on.
