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Conversations and rants about Civil Engineering with Denny Howell, P.E.
All right. Here we are back at episode number 16 of The Bearded Engineer. And today, I have Stormy Bell with me. And her and I have a I'm going to introduce her in second, but we go back to Cheshire County futures. But now Stormy, you've moved on.
Speaker 1:Tell me a I'm little bit about like very curious because I don't know.
Speaker 2:You don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't.
Speaker 2:Okay. I am the executive director for Girlspark.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:We are a nonprofit working in the Delaware Valley, working with teen girls ages 11 to 18, helping them navigate life social issues. Yeah. Body image, anxiety, worry, healthy relationships. We even work with some financial literacy, some STEM exploration, everything to help them have the tools and resources to navigate what's going on in their schools, in their lives, in their families. Giving them language to navigate that.
Speaker 2:Like big emotions are okay, it's how we manage them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And how long have you been the executive director there?
Speaker 2:March 2 was my first Yeah, so it's real new.
Speaker 1:It's a big day, Stormy. March 2, yeah. My birthday.
Speaker 2:Is it really?
Speaker 1:Oh, Oh, that's awesome. So that was March 2. And are you based in Cheshire County? Are you based in the three county area?
Speaker 2:Our address is actually Kennett Square, but we all work remotely. And it's kind of cool because myself and the admin are the only paid employees. So, it's all volunteer run.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely incredible. The passion that my volunteer team has.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:It's like some of the roles are like additional part time jobs, like for the amount that they put in. But the reward is so incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty cool actually. When I first saw what you did, I thought it was something similar to what the Economic Development Council's initiative is, the Girls Exploring Tomorrow's Technology, which has been a pretty cool thing to kind of get I don't know why this was the case, but back when this first that initiative first started, it was to someone felt that girls weren't as interested in, like, tech things, like engineering and things. Although we don't really see that here. I mean, I know that they said that and maybe that industry wide, but we we see as many girls in civil engineering as we do and as guys. And, like, truth be known, when they get out of college, they seem to be more focused on the career they just spent four or five years learning, right, and less focused on their football pool or their bracket or their 12 softball leagues and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So they're always a more focused group. Anyway, let's go back to what the mission is of what So you guys
Speaker 2:like I said, our mission is to I actually have it memorized. I type it enough, but I don't. So, I apologize to anyone listening. But we work with, like I said, teen girls 11 to 18, help them to navigate the emotional and social and just overall well-being for their mental wellness.
Speaker 1:And it's got this is something that this is why I'm glad it works with this. It's like something that, you know, when I was and we're probably a similar age. When I was in middle school, girls would have a notebook that they passed around, right? And they would write something in there about whatever was going on with their friends and that notebook got passed on. And then if you were part of the inner circle, you would find out what if they're talking about you or you're ugly or whatever you are.
Speaker 1:But at least then, I think I've thought of this a lot. That was pretty private and kept in a notebook. Rather than today
Speaker 2:It's on social media and it's out there. Fascinating. So if you have a bully situation in school, in our day, we could go home, we didn't have to deal with it till the next day. Now it follows you home. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:And just how to navigate that. There's no getting away from it.
Speaker 1:No, there's not. And I just can't I'll go back to a quick when I was an older boy, so I was like the youngest of them all. And there was a kid in sixth grade that didn't like me and I didn't like him and he wanted to beat me up. I was pretty small and pretty timid. Then my mom dropped me off at an altar boy practice.
Speaker 1:And luckily, in addition to learning to be an altar boy, the altar boys that I was with all like, we took about a half an hour to learn genuflecting and wine and water. And the other half an hour was teaching me how to fight in the back room. And then I got to be pretty good. I got to be and I realized I wasn't kind of as wimpy as I thought I was and scared. And then next thing you know, I was kind of flipping the script on the bullying thing, but back on him, not not not being pinched on me.
Speaker 1:Right. But but, you know, again, like, you know, that's just a a one on one thing. Him and I aren't duking that out in social media where everything you've done right or wrong is being aired out there for people.
Speaker 2:Alright. And it stays with you forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. How can
Speaker 2:you I'm so shed those glad that I was not raised during the social media I
Speaker 1:can't believe I've survived what I've got now and I luckily don't have any social media other than LinkedIn really, where I probably would have myself in huge trouble. But yeah, I'm so glad I wasn't either because I don't know how I would have if I could have handled it, how I would have handled it, or if I would have mouthed off and made things a thousand times worse Exactly, for right. But so like, how do you help these girls navigate through this? Because it's got to be you can't unring a bell, you you can't undo it.
Speaker 2:Well, we come at it with a social emotional learning aspect, where we're reaching them with the tools and resources that they need to help navigate. We have an annual summit where we out. We had two zero five girls register for a day long summit. The keynote speaker covered anxiety and worry. And just giving them language.
Speaker 2:Actually, Doctor. Rice had a book called The Worry Shark. Just going there, giving them Again, I keep talking about giving them language and tools and resources to navigate. And so we had other workshops, healthy relationships, healthy eating. We had self defense, yoga, like everything that really that holistic approach to these young girls.
Speaker 2:But then we also have 12 school clubs, where we're in clubs throughout the area, Downingtown West, Kennett, Upper Darby, we're in Shipley, and Villa Maria, just to name a So, it's more of an intimate setting. And we have up to five subject matter experts come into these classrooms. And some of the clubs meet before school, after school. One school actually has it built into their curriculum. So, the girls come in and they have the non workshop months.
Speaker 2:They have an opportunity to have activities that all build into that social emotional learning.
Speaker 1:And how long have they been in existence?
Speaker 2:Julia Casper, who's our founder.
Speaker 1:I read about her
Speaker 2:little bit before She is an amazing young woman. When she was 16, 17 years old, she had her own mental wellness journey at that time, and experiencing what her friends were also encountering as teenagers. And she goes to her mom, Laura Casper, who is a prominent businesswoman with Monarch Staffing.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And she's like, Mom, I want this and I don't have this at my age. You go to these conferences, you learn how to navigate and all these And so Laura's like, Well, find a club and start. So after nine, ten months, she goes, Mom, there's not one out there. So Laura's like, Start it.
Speaker 1:Start it, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so she wrote a business plan. She was with, I guess it's called YAY, Young Entrepreneurs Association, where she had to write a business plan. She took first place for the region. She went on to the national level, took second place. The scholarship or the award that was given was like the seed money for the first conference.
Speaker 2:153 girls, 67 schools throughout the region. And we've just grown from there. We just had our sixth conference at Penn State Brandywine.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really cool. Like I said, over two zero five girls registered. We have a middle school track, a high school track. We even have a we started last year having a parents track. So we're going like that.
Speaker 1:That's probably the most important, to be honest with you.
Speaker 2:Teaching the parents how
Speaker 1:to
Speaker 2:and show to navigate that. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Or how not you know, I mean, again, you go back to like a simple thing like if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all. I'm certainly guilty of violating that, although I don't really try to say that or try not to do that. But you definitely people just don't think, at least my impression is they don't think before they speak these days. It used to be I think you just kept more things to yourself. But now people with they either have these platforms and there's a lady that on Chester County Ramblings that comes out and she puts things out online and the other day just pissed me off about someone who that was in our business who passed away kind of tragically.
Speaker 1:And it's like if someone works, you know, like for what I do for a living, you know, no one's ever happy that I'm coming in and bringing townhouses or school or more school age children, but it's like, you know, we can't find a way as a society to just disagree like politely and professionally then we're never going to be able to move on. But it doesn't happen that way. No. And it seems like it's just like you said this goes down not only from someone just being ignorant to me at a township meeting when I'm just out there doing my job And these aren't kids doing it, these are probably parents or adults, then their kids are seeing them do the same thing.
Speaker 2:It's being mocked.
Speaker 1:Yep. It's being mocked. Without question.
Speaker 2:So yes, so we work with the parents and we give them the tools and resources. Teaching dads, just sometimes you just have to be there. You're not there to fix it. Just listen.
Speaker 1:Just listen to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're helping the entire family.
Speaker 1:Like Yeah. I said, this was interesting to me because I can relate to what it's got to be like to do today, but I also feel like I see this kind of getting passed on as I deal with the public, whether they're public people that are attending meetings that I'm at or whether they are appointed officials that we're dealing with. We can you can just feel that, like, erosive type of personality that's going on where they're just you know, we can't have a constructive conversation anymore about anything. Everything has to be like a zinger or a launched out thing and it just it's just bad. Just too much.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:But some of the things we do are actually communication skills, helping the girls know how to have engaging conversations.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we cover it all. It's very holistic.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not touchy feely. I told this story on one of the previous podcasts, but I I had a gentleman come out on a in a township, and he was older, and everyone got a chance to go up to the podium and or the microphone talk, he got up, and he's not in no way at all in favor of my project, like, in
Speaker 2:any way at all. Right?
Speaker 1:And he's all mad and pissed off, and everything he was saying was wrong about what he thought it was going to be like. I probably had four opportunities to just stomp him into the ground, but I didn't. And I easily could have stopped him from what he was saying and pointed out. But I let him go and I said, respectfully, would disagree and here's why I disagree. And I did it politely.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't that easy. Mean, did want to it was late, I hadn't eaten anything, right? I'm all You
Speaker 2:needed that
Speaker 1:snack bar?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I
Speaker 1:want to go home and eat. But I was nice. And then I got outside and we was having a little Dirty Tools World had like a little post meeting huddle up with my client or whatever. And I'm out there. And sometimes people take that opportunity to walk up and continue telling me how much they hate what I do.
Speaker 1:But this one lady came up and she was like, you know, I don't really like the project that you're proposing. You know, I don't want to see it developed, but I do admire how you handled Doctor. So and so. So he was a retired doctor and I was like, you know, when she left, was like said to my to my team, was like, this is actually kind of what it's really about. We should be able to disagree in some way and then continue to like move on.
Speaker 1:Not turn everything into like, you know, a scorched earth thing. You can't really come back from that, I don't think.
Speaker 2:No, you can't.
Speaker 1:Can't undo it.
Speaker 2:You've got to find that common ground.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think people have become very self centered. They want their platform and only their platform. And there is no left or right. It's only what's in front
Speaker 1:of them. There's not. I know. I'm telling you, I feel like I have a front row seat to this just watching. Because nothing that I do for a living is no one's ever clapping or happy that I'm there ever, no matter what we do.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was in a township a couple nights ago and I was proposing a revision to an ordinance that did not mean any more density. It didn't it actually only the only revision it was meant more preserved open space. That's It didn't result in more houses and more anything. And I still somehow found a person to completely disagree with me. And I sat there and I'm like, How can you disagree with this?
Speaker 1:This is exactly what you've
Speaker 2:You've been asking for.
Speaker 1:Yes. Exactly.
Speaker 2:And I'm giving it to you.
Speaker 1:Right. I just couldn't even believe it. But I feel like they're just I shouldn't say they that people are just pre programmed to disagree to such an extent that it's inhibiting us from getting anything done. And I think this is probably transferring all the way down through college, high school, middle school and that they're learning these traits and then that's when they come out and eventually now they're full blown adults and we can't get anything done. We're watching it happen our stupid government that we have now and everything else.
Speaker 1:How do you kind of start that's why I think it's really cool. How do you start earlier and teach people how to deal with all these social stresses and things like that?
Speaker 2:So we get the tools and resources.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. I said this before too, I think it would go good with a year ago, the Economic Development Council put on like a CEO series at Westchester. And they just did one this year, just last week. But the one year before, a bunch of good guys talked to CTDI and Vanguard and CHOP and
Speaker 2:Wawa?
Speaker 1:Wawa was at that one as well.
Speaker 2:Was at that one?
Speaker 1:Yep. And at the end of the it was all over, it was all moderated by Tamela Edwards. It was cool, right? And she's really cool. And the last question that the president of Westchester asked was if you could teach the kids I keep saying this story over here because I think it's super important.
Speaker 1:If you could teach the kids like, if there's one thing we could be teaching them, what would it be? And none of this was rehearsed. They all kind of looked at each other and one of them answered conflict resolution. And the other one was actually getting ready to literally say conflict resolution. And then they all went into their own experiences.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, Vanguard guy was like, look, we have people with their retirements on the line and their life savings on the line. And sometimes they're not happy and they're calling up. Obviously, the Wawa guy has a different but relatable things. Like people are in the morning.
Speaker 1:They're in a hurry. They're pissed off. They're late. There's no coffee, they're angry, they're taking that out on our employees or our staff. Obviously, the CHOP CEO was like, we're getting parents when they're at their worst, right?
Speaker 1:Their kids are very ill and we have to know how to handle that part of it. But that really is that does hit to the heart of what we try to do. I think what would be good for what you're saying, too, is how do you navigate those conflicts when now they can be amplified on all these social media platforms? I hate social media, by the way. I can't stand it.
Speaker 1:I really can't.
Speaker 2:But I do enjoy your posts on LinkedIn. Actually, love your picture. Is that photoshopped or is that
Speaker 1:really That's photoshopped. Yeah, photoshopped. Pretty funny. I own a brokerage in Florida and partner down there is a guy that we've been engrossed in long litigation. But I photoshopped that picture instead of me holding a set of plans.
Speaker 1:If you zoom in, I'm holding plans in the one that I have. In that one, I'm holding a fishing rod. And he doesn't like that picture at all. He thinks I look like an immature ass. But that picture has been brought up in depositions and all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, I got to tell you, Chris it's Chris Downey. I'm like, I have the same one for my legitimate engineering companies that I care very much about. So I think it's kind of cool. And that's not joke.
Speaker 2:You stand out?
Speaker 1:I stand out. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we all need that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, we need something anyway. But I try to keep my LinkedIn posts to a minimum and just voice my opinions on things. At least I don't try to hide who I am and what I do. No.
Speaker 1:Not too much anyway.
Speaker 2:Not too much.
Speaker 1:I did have one lady a couple years ago and she said, what posted was pretty harmless, but anyway, her comment was, I don't know you very well, but you seem like a total asshole. And I said, well, it sounds like you know me really good, almost like you grew up with me, to be honest with you. So I tried to just diffuse her a little bit and try to find a way to make it humorous, but it didn't really work. Didn't work.
Speaker 2:No, that's okay. Trying to find that common ground.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So how does your organization get support and how do you like get financial support?
Speaker 2:Same as any nonprofit individuals, corporate, grants.
Speaker 1:We
Speaker 2:have our application in for the educational incentive tax
Speaker 1:credit Oh, cool.
Speaker 2:So corporations can allocate their tax dollars to us. So, all of the above. Like I said, we started in 2018. And we had COVID in between there. It's like we're
Speaker 1:Yeah, three that years was fun, right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, we navigated through that. But corporations are really seeing the value. We talked to a lot of women's groups in the organization. A lot of the women are seeing themselves in that previous ten years or twenty years and wanting to get the opportunities for these young women to make it as far as they are and to go
Speaker 1:beyond. Right. The reason I ask is I do think, and I sit on a number of boards, handicrafters, which is very near and dear to my heart and I've been on the president of that board for a long time. Of course, I'm on Church of Canada Futures where you and I met. A lot of board meetings at a lot of these nonprofits center around fundraising because obviously they need money to be able to exist and to kind of see their mission through.
Speaker 1:But I do think that, at least for me, that giving in like your own backyard really is what feels the best. And you can kind of see the impact.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'll tell you, I gave a talk out at where I went to high school in Coatesville to some kids when I was part of the futures board. And like when I left there and sat out there in my car, I usually got there and kind of just, you know, catch up on what I just missed while I was talking, like some emails and some texts or whatever. And I just kind of sat there for like a half an hour and kind of reflected on what I just discussed and how critically important it was to talking to the kids and kind of showing them what we do. If for nothing else, maybe it makes them not want to be an engineer or be a land planner. They might just look at it and say, I'm glad he told me about that because I don't want to do that because I stumbled into this business.
Speaker 1:But I do think that the people want to give in their own backyard. So it's important to me, that's why I thought it be cool to have you come here today, was just to hear about what the mission is and see how much it resonates right here in our own backyard.
Speaker 2:Everyone has a teen girl in their life. Whether it's your daughter, your granddaughter, your neighbor's daughter, your coworker's daughter, someone knows a teen girl. And what they're encountering, it doesn't matter where their zip code is. These issues are happening across the board. We are currently in the Delaware Valley.
Speaker 2:Our long term goal is to go nationwide. Because we feel what we do matters to these young girls. Giving them a voice, letting them know that they can do it. We talked about circling back, you had mentioned about girls and guys going into engineering.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:We find that teen girls have the same aptitude as boys. Like, there's no ability difference.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. I fully agree.
Speaker 2:It's confidence. Yeah. Know, believing that they can do it.
Speaker 1:Yep. And
Speaker 2:giving them I know I keep saying it, but it's the tools and resources. It's giving them that language to go in, to pursue these careers, to go after their dream jobs because they can do it. And just believing in them. And we talked about the social pressures that are going on around them. There's so much impacting their lives.
Speaker 2:I
Speaker 1:will tell you that in our specific business of engineering, while we are engineering and you're in here in the office and you're doing engineering, so much of what we do is also public outreach and presentation. And like I said, to be able to have the confidence and the thick skin I mean, we take younger engineers out to meetings with us. And it's an intimidating environment. Like I said, one's glad that you're there. You're literally walking into a room where nearly every person in there is opposed to you.
Speaker 1:Like, I mean, they disagree with me all they want, but like I said, I never go into a township meeting where someone's just clapping and applauding that I'm there. It's never ever happened. It doesn't matter what I'm doing. Yeah, I mean, can be I did a facility in a western township where they use horses as therapy for people with physical and mental disabilities.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And back then I was still young and naive and thought, you know, this is this is this is a really like like a tear jerking initiative. That's that's you know, what a great thing.
Speaker 2:Mission.
Speaker 1:And no, it was traffic, it was noise, it was lighting, I can't pull out of my drive. I mean, never not a single thing. But I can trust through because I actually love the conflict and I love the fight. So to me, even though it sounds crazy, the more crowded the room, the more angry the people, the more that I like. I actually do love it because I want to win.
Speaker 1:I'm going to like win by attrition or wear them down because at the end of the day, I can create a plan that I know has to be approved. And so it's become now in my career that like if I come in to a meeting we have a lot of jobs, have a lot of people, a lot of good engineers that are out at meetings. But when I show up at one, then usually it's like, oh, well, if you're here, then that must mean this is serious and going to happen. It's absolutely going to happen. But getting back to that, getting you said like with the girls with the confidence, getting someone to just have the confidence to be able to go into that room and I don't want use the word stand up to it, but you are kind of standing up to it because it's not easy.
Speaker 1:It's not. They're against you.
Speaker 2:We're incorporating this year a little bit more of a STEM exploration. We're having female professionals in the STEM world come in and speak about their journey. Not just what they do, but what soft skills do you need to survive in more of a man's world? It's the self confidence, self advocacy, resilience, all the pieces that make them able to navigate and move forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I don't feel as much, at least and I get asked this question. I have a daughter that's in the business. My daughter is a landscape architect. She works for Nave Knoll.
Speaker 1:I can't speak for her and I'm sure that exists in other business. But like in the pure engineering in what I do day to day, I could almost flip a coin each day with whether I'm dealing with the regulatory community or a township engineer. It could very easily be a male, could be a female. It's kind of to me, it feels fiftyfifty. Right.
Speaker 1:It also I wouldn't be able to say that I think that the guys are harder than the girls are. I think that everyone's kind of the nice thing about engineering is, in theory, we should be engineering.
Speaker 2:Shouldn't And you be should first and foremost.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you shouldn't be just trying to be a gigantic pain in the butt. I think that task and it's fine is for the township and their planning commission. They're not being a pain in the ass, but it feels that way from our side because, again, they're not really in agreement of it. But to have a person be able to go into that climate and be able to navigate through it and again have the confidence.
Speaker 1:Because again, very hard when you are being questioned in everything that you do. I I think it starts to make you question yourself and what you're doing. Maybe what I am doing is not right. And instilling that into them early on I think is a huge thing.
Speaker 2:Very cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And the last thing I was going to do last thing, but I do think too, it's cool. I started a group called Chester County Engineers a long time ago. I kind of saw what the home builders did for the builders getting together. And similar to what your founder said, I said, you know, there's no group of the engineers for us to all I don't want to say we're all getting together and bitching about it, but we kind of are getting together and kind of trading our stories of what's going on, what our challenges are, whether engineering challenges or, in our case, again, prior to me doing that, my relationship with a township engineer was really one back when I first started the business was just through it was like having a pen pal.
Speaker 1:I didn't really see this person.
Speaker 2:You just emailed back
Speaker 1:and forth. Oh, didn't even email. I got letters in the mail. Right? Got a review letter.
Speaker 1:Denny, this is wrong, that's wrong. I made it all. And then eventually, no matter what, you eventually began to hate that person that just constantly gave you letters about how everything was wrong and then your client got copied on that letter and then they thought you're an idiot so they're questioning what you're doing and why are they paying you for this and that. And I was like, needs to stop. I mean, it's great to have the peer review, but what I wanted to do is just say like, hey, we're both engineers.
Speaker 1:We both breathe air. We drink water. We're both trying to work on a project. Is there a way we can not just fence? Because I would watch my lawyer friends and I'm like, you know, lawyers don't really fence too much.
Speaker 1:They kind of work things out. I'm not talking about litigation, but like in our business. So I formed this group. It really has done very well. I served on the board for like ten years.
Speaker 1:It still goes very good. And it's definitely yesterday was actually the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers Golf Outing. It's a bunch of engineers playing golf, but we all stink. But it was still fun. But it's nice to see us get together.
Speaker 2:Get together, support each other, talk the same language. Yep.
Speaker 1:Just like the old cartoon where the sheepdog and wolf show up in the morning, know, I don't if you watch cartoons like I did on Saturday morning, but they both clock in.
Speaker 2:You're dating yourself. You are.
Speaker 1:They both clock in and then they like battle it out all day long, you know, and then they both clock out.
Speaker 2:And they walk out together. Yep. Very cool. So, one thing that we do do, we have a teen leadership board. So, you do not have to be part of a school club.
Speaker 2:It's open to all teen girls from high school, like ninth or twelfth grade.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:it's a ten month leadership program. There's That's presidents, vice presidents, treasurer, all the different responsibilities. They meet monthly. Like I said, there's the exec team, there's the regular board. One of their main responsibilities is to vet the workshop leaders coming in.
Speaker 2:So, as the adults, we make sure they have all their certification, like they are who they But say they then they come in and they do like a ten, fifteen minute presentation to the teen board, And the teens are like, Yes, we can learn from that. That's a subject that we need, we want more of. So, everyone who's in those classroom settings, the teens are saying, Yes, we want this, we need this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's
Speaker 2:cool. And the teens are actually also informing which topics we talk about. Last year at the conference, the topic that came out was body image. This year, it was relationships. We actually And you'll appreciate this.
Speaker 2:We had one girl's question was, All right, there's three of us who are best friends, but how do I manage it when two of them go off and leave me out?
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Like, we need that as adults.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But they're having the courage to ask those questions when it matters, when they can learn how to navigate that.
Speaker 1:That's a very interesting one because I could be one of my clients right now. And I have clients that use me as their engineer, use other guys as their engineer, and they don't want to upset either one of us, but they can't give us every job. You know what I mean? And you have to find a way. Like I believe in all of my clients and I believe that if they chose to go another way, it may have been for a geographic reason.
Speaker 1:It may have been that they thought I was too busy. It may have been that I messed up the last job. Maybe I was just too expensive. But you're big enough and on enough of a professional level that you can, again, not be in full agreement, but everything be kind of fine. It's not easy to do.
Speaker 1:No. It really isn't. So I have a foundation that I started a couple years ago. I just did my big golf outing. Golf outing.
Speaker 1:Yep, two weeks ago. It awesome. It supports a scholarship fund that I do for my old boss, Ted Jacobus. And then we actually have some of his scholarship winners in here. Whoever wins, I kind of give them a summer job as an internship.
Speaker 1:They're free to come back if they want to. On the other summer, some of them have come back a couple times now. Nice. They don't have to come back. I kind of like to just tell them all that, like, what Ted did for me and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But we're also doing another cool event that is just in its very What are you doing? This might be the first I time I mentioned Yeah, and it's very infant idea stages. But we're looking for groups that we can then have it benefit as well.
Speaker 2:Oh, that'd be awesome.
Speaker 1:Yep. So we would love to talk to you more about that. But it's going to be and again, haven't gone to the borough. Actually, have my daughter You're
Speaker 2:hearing about it first time here. You are, actually. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:And my daughter, Mackenzie Howe, then a fantastic girl, Devon, is helping her create a presentation. I'm going to let them present this to the borough, hopefully in Westchester, but it's to do a soapbox race down one of the streets in Westchester. And already have I kind of have where I want the course to be. Some food trucks, have it be a nice summer Saturday event that could raise good money, be a lot of fun, no one will get hurt of straw bales. But just the other day Devin was asking me who I wanted to support and I was like, you know, I didn't want to commit to exactly one.
Speaker 1:I knew we were going to talk here at some point in time. I want to learn more about it. But we can definitely talk more about it when the time comes.
Speaker 2:I would love that. Now, I grew up in an age where that was quite popular. How do you create your soapbox?
Speaker 1:Well, do you ever watch the soapbox races on YouTube? No. I could sit for an afternoon and be hysterical and watch them. Yeah. They're hysterical.
Speaker 2:I didn't see this firsthand, but my husband had friends up in Canada and they had bed races. Like taking hospital beds and dressing up crazy and all the things and going through the streets to see who had the best time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. This is very similar to I could sit and watch it. Mean, they get funnier and funnier to watch them happen. And I think it'd be a lot of fun. So we're planning it right now.
Speaker 2:You're going to get organizations and businesses to have a team and come in and participate?
Speaker 1:Yes. I've already got many that are dying to build theirs. Some have even started to kind of sketch out what theirs will look like. Again, if you look at
Speaker 2:it on YouTube sometime, you'll Send me the link.
Speaker 1:I will. I'll send you
Speaker 2:a link of it, what it will be.
Speaker 1:But we're excited to try to get support behind it. We're excited to promote it, trying to have some cool ideas. If you watch the ones that are on YouTube, announcer kind of makes it even funnier than what it is when you're watching it just with his commentary and comments, it's really funny to watch. So we're kind of hoping we get some good traction with that.
Speaker 2:So that's the emcees or seeing them race and
Speaker 1:then talking about He's talking about them.
Speaker 2:You've to get some news coverage on this to make this a really big deal.
Speaker 1:That's why I've pushed it out to be like a little over a year away because I figure I have that much planning to do. So we'll see what happens. But well, look, thanks for coming on here again. I'd Thank love to keep me up to date as to what's Thank going
Speaker 2:you for having us. Thank you for spotlighting Girls Spark.
Speaker 1:Of course. Do you want to give the link and everything?
Speaker 2:It's girlspark.org.
Speaker 1:There you go. Girlspark.org. I did look it up before you came in.
Speaker 2:Oh, very cool. It's a good organization. I think people, it resonates with everyone. Like I said, everyone has a teen girl in their life and the mission's awesome. I love the fact that it was founded by a teen girl for teen girls.
Speaker 2:So it's coming from a place of understanding.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I mean, I wasn't a teen girl, but I thought it looked like it was hard to be a teen girl back when I was a teen guy. And now I can think it's got to be 100 times harder now.
Speaker 2:Well, were a girl dad. You saw it I
Speaker 1:am. I'm still one right now. Yep. Okay. Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Danny. See you later.
Speaker 2:Bye. Bye.