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Marcia, welcome to the show.

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I have been really excited to talk to you
because you are the perfect combination of

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stuff we love to talk about.

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So let me give you a few compliments just
right out of the start.

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You do a lot of work that benefits
humanity.

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You even do volunteer work, which I'd love
to talk about as well.

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And you got quite the head to technology
and AI.

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And on top of that, you've got a science
background and you focus on decision

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-making and statistics and data,
predominantly data.

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So these are all our hotspots.

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So I'm so excited to have you on the show
today and a very, very big welcome.

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What is your proudest moment?

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Years ago when I was in college, I did a
lot of volunteer work working with

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immigrants and refugees.

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in the Puyallup Valley area, and that's a
place in Washington State here, where I

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learned that there is such a thing as the
hidden poor, meaning there were a lot of

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people who in the area at the time were
living under very difficult conditions.

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but they were not necessarily visible.

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didn't see them on the street corner.

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You didn't see them under the bridges and
such.

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They actually, you know, were holding down
jobs.

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They were living in apartments and such,
but really some dire conditions.

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And I partnered with a older lady.

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She was in her 80s.

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And she and I would go out and we would
actually deliver food.

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We would get food from the supermarkets
and that was close to expiring or expired

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but still good.

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Like yogurt and cheese, those kind of
things.

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And we would go out and we would knock on
doors and we would find these people.

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A lot of them were through a list that the
church kept at the time.

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What made the biggest impression to me was
the amount of gratitude and the humanity

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that I witnessed.

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And I got to see a side of people and also
contribute to being able to help somebody

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directly in a way that I don't know that
most people have that experience.

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And I remember meeting this couple.

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that was they had a new baby, didn't even
have diapers for the baby.

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mean we were bringing diapers, were
bringing formula, all of the things.

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And this couple was so radiant, so
beautiful in their state, so gracious.

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And I was thinking how can such people be
so happy when you

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They really have nothing.

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And yet here they were, you know, they
were both working multiple jobs,

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oftentimes at night trying to keep up with
things.

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you know, it was very, very difficult.

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And I think from that point on that
experience really set the tone for a

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mission for the rest of my life.

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And that is really to do good, to uplift.

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humanity and look at some of our social
issues that we have and figure out, how

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can we make this better?

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How can we get the message out that
everybody matters here?

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And even though to society they may not
have had, they certainly were

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contributing, but I think society looks
down on poverty.

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they look down on that kind of a condition
and yet I can say directly they impacted

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me, just their sheer presence and me being
able to give back to them.

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And that has lit a fire for me going
forward.

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So yeah, I would say that was my most
impactful.

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event and you know I always had a heart
for especially immigrants and refugees and

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that led me down some cultural roads.

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You know I got my degree in anthropology,
I started learning languages, I started

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trying to really dive deep and understand
some of the cultural needs.

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My grandmother was a Russian Canadian
immigrant.

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who came from, the family came over from
Russia before the communist revolution.

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Leo Tolstoy actually brought them out of
Canada.

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But she lived to be, you 95, 96 years old.

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And she shared a lot of her wisdom with me
about just how difficult it was even

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coming to the US from Canada, where, you
know, she still had

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you know, language to learn and some
cultural things to overcome.

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But I've always tried to put myself in the
other shoes.

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And what I've learned in my experience is
there, I mean, we can learn from other

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people.

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And so many of these immigrants and
refugees are, you know, they have done

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things

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I would say the average American would
never do, know, and step outside of the

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comfort zone, go to a different land, take
all of these risks to try to, you know,

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live the American dream or to live a
better life.

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And to me, that's also a big inspiration.

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So I like to learn other stories as

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Would you say there was one kind of
pivotal learning that changed you as a

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person and a leader?

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one of those things that built on the
learning was the fact that we all have

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kind of a subculture to us.

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I I mentioned immigrants and refugees, but
all of us have a heritage, especially here

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in the United States.

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My family is very diverse.

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I mentioned my grandmother, but I had
Irish, had French, I had Native American,

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a lot of other roots that have contributed
to who I am today.

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So to be able to hear other stories,
number one, and number two, be able to

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understand the language that they

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And when I mean language, I don't mean,
you know, like English or Japanese or

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French.

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I'm talking about the hidden language of
just how we've learned to get along.

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And even in disciplines, so you look at
law enforcement, you look at the judicial

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branch, you look at business, you look at
government, you look at, I mean, there's

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all these different groups that we kind

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moves between.

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And professionals in each one of these
groups has their own lingo, their own

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language, their own culture.

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And throughout my career path, I've done a
lot of work in data, I've done a lot of

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work in government, I've worked with a ton
of different sectors in society as well.

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And it's interesting when you get two
different of these groups or more in a

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room.

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and trying to communicate and work on one
problem.

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A good lesson for me was observing law
enforcement and engineers, transportation

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engineers, trying to have a conversation
about, how are we going to build a

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database?

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I was like, wow, talk about some smart
swang.

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And there was misinterpretations all over
the place because they were reading each

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other different

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one person would use one word, which would
mean something different to somebody else.

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And I found myself often running
interference or helping to translate

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between these groups as I learned the
language.

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And I found I got quite good at that,
helping to build those bridges so that we

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can actually focus on what matters.

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And that is, how do we work together to
solve these problems that are bigger than

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all of us?

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How can we agree?

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mean, yeah, you may not take the same
language as you.

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We may have some differences, but
ultimately, we're focused on the same

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goal.

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We're trying to go the same direction.

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How do we get

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You know, my boss and my mentor from long
ago, used to call that English to English

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translation.

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Absolutely.

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can we open our eyes to see and learn and
know more about

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Well, I think that it all starts
ultimately with listening deeply to

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people's we talked about the hidden poor.

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We talked about some of the challenges
that many immigrants face.

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But there are also many people who have
been here their whole life who are also in

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some of these situations for various
reasons.

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I think that we can kind of break it down
to, you know, there's a physical aspect,

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there is a emotional aspect, and there's a
spiritual aspect of poverty that exists.

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And it's not an easy subject to unwind.

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I mean, it's wonderful that we have AI
able to do some of the deeper learning

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capabilities we have because that's going
to

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us to shed some light on some of these
more difficult issues.

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But a lot of times what I've seen is there
are layers there.

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It starts with your upbringing ultimately,
know, who you are and what makes up your

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family, how you were raised, your
background, who you've had around you.

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All of that influences your opportunities
that you have around

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But then you also have your biology.

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And some people are just more resilient
than others.

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And in the United States, we also have a
health care crisis where from the physical

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body aspect to the mental health aspect,
we do not necessarily have the best

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structures in place to support everybody.

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So depending on what category you're
falling into, that's defined poverty.

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It can be defined many different ways.

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And I think at its core, this is also
where we get some resistance and pushback

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on being able to support true poverty,
physical poverty.

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or being able to support some of the
immigration is the average citizen kind of

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says, well, what about me?

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I'm having it rough.

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I'm having a rough day.

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I'm not right.

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And everybody's got their own story.

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So there is likely truth to that.

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There could be, as I mentioned, emotional
poverty.

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Maybe somebody's gone through some
horrible trauma that they're dealing with.

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I think all of us have.

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have a degree of trauma.

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Same thing with spiritually, maybe there's
a spiritual poverty and they're turning to

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alcohol or drugs or something to help feed
a whole that could be dealt with in a

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different way.

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it really does come back to the story,
which is why I love the name of your

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podcast so much, the story Samurai, is
that our stories just have so much power

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to them, we simply need to listen to each
other deeply to even start to find these

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solutions that can make a bigger change,
bigger shift to humanity in

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of that.

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I mean this idea that learning, empathy,
close your mouth, open your ears, and

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really just understand what's happening
around you.

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And I would say more than that, I would
say put yourself in a spot where you can

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be exposed and learn.

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There's the how you're doing, which you'll
get the fine, yeah, I'm great, which

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you'll never get any real information from
that.

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But then there's the, no really, how are
you doing today?

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Like that's going to elicit a whole
different response.

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And sometimes that second time that you
ask it sincerely, not as a, you know, hey,

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good to see you, but as I care about you
and I want to know if you're doing okay.

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It's a totally different thing.

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the mission of EcoHeart, as it shows up on
the first page, is to up -level humanity

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through the power of data.

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I read that out and I was immediately,
Nikki, you have to see this.

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This is wonderful.

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Yeah, so with Ecoheart, this really

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I would say my bigger calling in life and
that is to bridge data and humanity to

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create a better world.

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There are so many things that I've
observed in my professional journey and my

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personal journey as well.

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know, hearing people's stories, living
different...

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career experiences.

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And what I identified was that we have a
lot of issues in society.

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I mean, that's a given.

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But we also have a lot of research out
there in academics that are doing great

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work.

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They're writing wonderful papers.

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They are giving wonderful speeches.

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But that information is

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going anywhere.

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It's just kind of going out into the void
and into a nice collection.

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And I can hear it in the academics, the
frustration of, well, we've got all the

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solutions.

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We know it would work.

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But if somebody would just listen or do
these things, then maybe we could make a

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difference.

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The flip side of that is with government.

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You have a lot of governments right now in
a very reactive

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mode and just trying to stay afloat.

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And never before have we had technology
changing at the pace that we have.

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A lot of our systems are not able to keep
up with the pace of technology.

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The courts are a great example where
you've got a court case can take a couple

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years to go through the system.

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But a tweet or you can send a message
around the world in a second.

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People expect things more on demand now.

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They expect the systems to also be able to
keep up with that.

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And I can tell you there's a lot of work
that needs to be done even to get to that

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point.

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So the bigger question is we

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philanthropists circling and saying, I've
got all this money.

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I want to make a difference in the world.

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Where do I put it?

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That's a different kind of a challenge.

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And you have a large

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groups that have been formed to try to
distribute money for that very purpose.

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And then you also have businesses wanting
to help, but sometimes they're actually

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getting in there and they're making the
situation worse.

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So how do you look at all of that?

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How do you actually bridge the gap?

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And I really believe that our opportunity
right now is data.

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I've seen the power of data.

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when it's put in action to save lives.

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I've seen the power of data when it's put
into action to make big changes that

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benefit society on the whole.

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And we can't get there if we can't see
where we're going.

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Data helps us to see where we're going and
can also give us a view of not only where

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we started from, but how big the impact
that we made.

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was.

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So, you know, there's a cross
-disciplinary approach that is also very

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much needed in society.

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And many of us have a tendency to look at
things in a very narrow lens.

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So I gave the example earlier of law
enforcement and transportation.

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Well,

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the engineers and we were looking at
traffic safety for that and I was part of

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some fantastic multidisciplinary teams
early on in my career that we were looking

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at ways that we could reduce traffic
fatalities on the roads and by bringing

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together experts from multiple disciplines
to really ask the questions we quickly

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discovered

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it's more than just something that one
segment of society can handle.

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So, you know, for example, law enforcement
would go out and do drunk driving arrest

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and I could hear the frustration in their
voices when they would say, well, we got

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him off the street tonight, but, you know,
the judges let him out or whatever, he's

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out of jail the next day.

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So what difference did I make?

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And I used to argue, you know what, you
made a difference in the moment and you

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could have saved a life that night.

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Every drunk driver removed from a road is
a potential life saved, was my motto back

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then.

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But we quickly realized, wow, we need the
whole system to be working together.

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We need trauma response.

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We need.

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to understand what kinds of things are
creating impaired driving.

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We need to know how our roads are built
and where are the problems that the roads

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are causing versus where can we actually
position law enforcement to do a good job

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in maybe slowing traffic down, for
example.

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So looking at all of these things together
and looking at the data,

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we were able to design some very impactful
on the ground programs that we really

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started testing and trying to make a
difference.

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And we did have quite a bit of impact at
that time.