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Of Stones And Startups: A Geoscience Transformation? · PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think we should try and make geoscience the new biotech.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Use biotech as a model for that.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, vaccines?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Developing a vaccine for COVID?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's important.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, the science behind it's probably pretty cool if you're in that space.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Planet Geo, the podcast where we talk about our amazing planet, how it works, and why it matters to you.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as the red light comes off, Chris has got a sneak.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on, Dr.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Rymank?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pumped, man.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh this is near and dear to my heart.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: What uh what are you feeling about this conversation?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Geoscience and entrepreneurship.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: What are you feeling about this?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um well, so I don't I want to wait on that.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I have a I want to wait before we answer this because I think that it's gonna be a part of our natural discussion.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, from the outset, I'm really excited about this.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is a culmination really of our series on it's a good time to be a geoscientist, and we're gonna kind of like I think bring this full circle now and really focus the discussion on entrepreneurship in the geoscience-related fields, and also kind of why we got left behind in this and and maybe what are some solutions, but also Jesse, some personal takes on this because I think we you and I both come at this from very different angles.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think generationally and philosophically.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that I I you're like three generations removed from me, and you know, I have a different, totally different worldview.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I hope this is gonna be like really interesting to our listeners.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think it will be.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm really excited about talking about this with you, actually.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm excited about this, Chris.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I this is a uh this is near and dear to my heart now.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I have undergone a massive shift in my own career.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like in graduate school, I I had basically diametrically opposed views to what I'm gonna talk about today, like 180-degree turn.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: But now I just found out last week, Chris.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is at the time of recording where uh, you know, summertime.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just found out that our entrepreneurship and innovation at Penn State, we have an entrepreneurship and innovation minor that sits in the business school that students can take.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: They require six classes, and the way they've structured it is that they take three of those classes for the minor, they take them in the business school.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're like entrepreneurship classes, management, business management type stuff that everybody takes.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then they take the students take three classes that exist in different colleges across campus.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So there's like a biotech one, there's a hospitality one, there's social innovation, there's there's uh a couple different ones I'm forgetting the name of now, but our college never had one.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And because I I've had this class on geoscience entrepreneurship for a while, I wanted to start one of these things.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we just got approved.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: We had now have an uh energy transition cluster.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can get a minor in entrepreneurship and innovation in the energy transition, and that is housed in our college, and I'm the director of that.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that'll come on board this fall.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's teaching.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, look at my little friend making his way up the ladder.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Look at you go.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Director of something.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: You make something and then you can't.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So do I call do I call you director doctor now?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Director Dr.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Jesse Rymank.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um Exactly.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's awesome.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't real real quick.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I need I must interject.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: You actually have to call me.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I just I got the final uh official president signed letter that I got tenure.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So now you have to call me associate professor Rymank all the time when you refer to me.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Director.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'd prefer director, associate director.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can I call you assistant?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Assistant associate professor.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm associate now.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm associate.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: No longer assistant.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: To the associate professor.
• 3:53
  unknown: That's right.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're the Michael Scott.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: No, you're the you're the Dwight Shrood of this podcast, Jesse.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're the assistant.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even want to know.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Regional manager.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, well, let's get into the details here.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I'm excited about this.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've my like I said, my views have changed dramatically.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So let's turn to we have some slides here that we're showing.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: We'll put these images on the app too.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the first slide here is a really interesting um perspective for me and Stuart, who's written a lot about this.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: But this is a I I don't want to get too lost in the weeds here, Chris.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, what this chart shows, it's a three horizons view, and they've they've framed this in the context of geoscience.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, it says it's the importance of various thinking styles in the future.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So now the dominant one is this black line, it's the business as usual kind of perspective.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea is that that's gonna decline in the future.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Business as usual, things are changing, we're in a dynamic environment, that's gonna decline in importance in the future.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's this blue curve that starts kind of medium and it kind of increases in the near-term future, gets very important in the near term, and then declines in the long term.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is kind of like entrepreneurial, they call this the entrepreneurial horizon.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's this really long view that's visionary, that's stuff that's not gonna be ready in 20 years, it's gonna be ready in 50 years.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's this like really long time frame kind of development stuff.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it kind of highlights the point that the blue curve, the entrepreneurial one, is really important.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Chris, there is this.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've sensed this in myself before, and I think this is a cultural phenomenon in geoscience, that entrepreneurship is not really part of the bloodstream, part of the DNA of the geoscience community.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious, do you what's your knee-jerk reaction to that statement?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um you agree?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is with that, I agree with you.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I agree with that.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's how I feel personally, Jesse.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and I know that you know, I was brought up in the very old school, um, you know, traditional way of geoscience, but I've I've come a long, long ways, and our relationship has fostered that growth in my own profession as well.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't feel like I am equipped to I don't know, even when we were talking about putting this episode together, I questioned what can I contribute to this?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, because seriously, uh, because I think I think I'm a part of the problem.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but that I know I know it is.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, that's why it's such an interesting take.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: I want to ask you this.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: What can I do?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I look at this, Jesse.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's a responsibility that I have, it's a responsibility that you have, and all geoscience educators do for that matter, because this fits into why are you going into geoscience?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: What do you hope to do?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this has to be a part of that discussion.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: And totally I want to know what I can do to change how I approach things because I have I would say a bumper crop of really top-notch students coming out that are gonna go to all over the country and pursue a geoscience education.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And what can I do to foster this part of it?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I change the world, right?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're talking about.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we can come to use a Chris Bullheisism, put a pin in that and come back to that conversation because I think that's the crux of it.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's let's have the discussion, let's have the high-level view first and go through.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I can't help myself.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, and that, but I think that's a really important one to come back to.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I will I I want to ask you a question on that about the tension between the personal stuff and the teaching side, because I don't know how related those might be for you.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you do if you feel like you need to go out and do entrepreneurship stuff in order to teach and showcase that, or if you don't necessarily need the personal experience to do it.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I know you teach a lot from personal experience and you know you bring a lot of personal anecdote.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, stew on that question, let's come back to it.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but okay.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: This three horizons too, I just I just stewing stewing has started over there.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Stewing.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Actively stewing.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that's great.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the so this three horizons thing.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna focus in on the entrepreneurial one.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole for people who are listening to the podcast and not looking at the images, it's fine.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole bunch of different uh bullet points, like different text on here.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's really it really is fine too, because this is like there's a lot to this.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot to it.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: You could spend hours just looking at this image and thinking, do I agree with this one?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Would I word it differently?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: All this stuff.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna highlight two of the key factors that Ian Stewart et al.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: put together as being important things along this entrepreneurial path.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, in order to get entrepreneurial activities to become more important in the future, things that are entrepreneurial today will be important in the next 10, 20 years and will become dominant.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: One of these is what I've done is I've highlighted ones that I have, I think multiple people have emphasized to me, whether it's alumni from our department that are on our alumni advisory board or people in casual conversations about this entrepreneurship thing.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of them is integration with business and economics.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard from multiple people now, many people, I would say very prolific alumni, people from outside of the Penn State community have said the one class that they wish they would have taken and they would recommend everybody else taking in a geoscience degree is take a business class or a finance class or an economics class.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have a question for you on that though.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I'm highlighting that box, Chris.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm highlighting integration with business and economics.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead and highlight the other one.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Bring the other one up too.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's not a good idea.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: The other one is is nature-based solutions, which is just we we let me just tidy that thought up.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Nature-based solutions, the answers in the rocks.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: We covered that in part three of this.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good time to be a geoscientist.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like the answers are in the rocks, we should look at the rock record.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: So here's the thing that I struggle with.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say that we make that a part of the requirement, right?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, traditional geoscience education is going to require, you know, statistics probably as peripheral classes, a lot of chemistry, calc-based physics, probably.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if we made this a requirement as a peripheral class, I fail to see the real value in that if it's not given a context.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I just don't know.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I I think that's exactly right, Chris.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I oh I totally agree with what you're saying here.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think like I struggle with this, right?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's is it a gen ed that you just have to take to get a breadth of exposure to stuff?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it something that's deeply integrated?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have to have a geo business class?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like that is obviously much more applicable and obviously much more integrated within the program.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: It goes the same for statistics.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: We can send our students over and we do to go take a statistics class in the computer science department or in the math department of statistics.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: But we also maybe we should offer a geostatistics class because that's much more valuable to them, actually.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: See, because I I'm interested to where the mind of our listeners uh is at right now, because my mind is if I just take a business class with no context, I I can't see what I could do in my field that integrates business into that.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't know.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I guess I need maybe there are people, well, I know there are people that are a lot smarter than I am, but I can't see I don't have a vision.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's not.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I um yeah, I agree with you completely.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's like a hammer looking for a nail, right?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to we need to have a tool, it's I think it's another tool in the geoscientist toolkit, especially in this brave new world, where entrepreneurial activities today, I think, are definitely going to be made more important in the future.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: We are not gonna be doing the business as usual of the last couple decades in the next couple decades.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like the world is changing underfoot, that ship has sailed, and I think we need to be prepared for that.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of those, like, I don't know the best way to structure it in the curriculum, but I've heard from many, many people that this is important and that's the other thing.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hopefully we come back to that later on in terms of the way that you and I are conducting business and the way that everybody else is.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, we come back to that.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um what about the nature-based solutions?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the nature-based solutions, I'm gonna skip ahead here, and it just uh to me, there are so many interesting startups.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Many of them are very high risk, very startup-y, unproven ground, but there are so many of them.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've just listed some here.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Lithos Carbon, Geologic AI, Coloma, Geological Hydrogen Prospecting Company, Cobold Metals, Fervo Energy, Fleet Space, all of these are geoscience, deeply geoscience companies or geoscience adjacent companies.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're all starting up, they're all raising millions and millions of dollars to get off the ground, and many of them come out of, well, I would say some of them come out of academic geosciences or at least are hiring.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: That was what I was gonna ask you.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: So can we talk about that a second?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: So some of them come out of the departments, but some like are started by you know PhDs or faculty members or whatever, and but other ones are are are seriously are hiring serious PhD level geologists, geoscientists, geophysicists.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, out of geology departments.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Based on what?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is that based upon their research that they've done that a startup company is looking at that saying this person has a skill set or has knowledge that we need to have, so they go out and recruit them, they're headhunting these people, or what?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think that's it's partially that, but I think it's also partially just it goes back to what we were talking about before, our previous episode, where geologists kind of think differently and are trained to think differently.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think the geological training is perfect for entrepreneurship.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: This balance of like risk versus decision making versus like really complicated 4D, deep time, complicated topics, trying to distill complicated stuff down to simple uh schematics.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's entrepreneurship to me.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so the geological mind is perfect for this, I think.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in part that's why people are recruiting.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, there are people who are recruiting for like deep geophysical understanding and you know, or deposits geology knowledge and a huge long history of research and those and critical geochemistry and carbon all these hot topics of carbon sequestration.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the skills and expertise cannot be discounted, but I do think that the mindset in the mind frame is actually really, really valuable.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but hold on though.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: That all right.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: So then how does somebody rise to the top then in terms of a company recognizes somebody and says, we need to have this person?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: If it's not a specific knowledge that a geoscience mind has, then it's a skill set, then how how is that how does that become known?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: How do they become like how does that happen?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: How do they get into it?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I I um I think Well, and then do you need to have a PhD for that?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, that's a really that's a really good that's a good question.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in many instances, my opinion is like, no, you don't need a PhD.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: My default answer to that question is no, you don't need a PhD necessarily.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm calling bull on that.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: It might be the case that you that a PhD, a PhD definitely goes a long way in this.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like deep knowledge, deep research, the skills you get in a PhD, you basically push knowledge, human knowledge forward a tiny little amount in a tiny little really deep niche area.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: But you're you get experience to that bleeding edge of the unknown.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's the value.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: You learn how to operate there, you can do your own research, you can push yourself, you learn on your own, you can manage a project, you can see it through to writing and completion, all these soft skills, presentation, people skills, all that stuff comes out of a PhD, which I think makes it really valuable for startups.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's really comparable.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think my job, basically, my job at Penn State, I'm a little mini startup.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a little mini entrepreneur with they give me some startup money, they say go build a research group.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's very little upside risk.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: If my research group gets huge and famous, you know, I don't get rich and famous, but there's no downside.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get fired if it doesn't work very well either, right?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so I'm kind of it's very similar to entrepreneurship in a way, just with you know, the risk is different or the risk profile is different.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um I kind of feel as though my little friend over there, my assistant to the associate professor.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um director assistant to the associate professor.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: You're the assistant to everything.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're gonna go get our PGO degree, PG PGOs, we're gonna tag that onto the back of the name too.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um I get a feeling, Jesse, that you have your eye on something else.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is something that you're passionate about, and uh you're kind of trying to keep everything open and you're looking for maybe an opportunity or an avenue to to do this.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's an interesting change the world.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's an interesting point.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have seen way more professors, more way more senior than me and way more expert than me, who are some of them are actually leaving their really nice professor jobs to go do startup stuff, getting hired away by these companies, which I've never seen before in my career.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there's always a little bit of like academia to industry movement and back and forth, but it seems to me that there's a lot more than there used to be.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, I see a lot of it actually with the Penn State Geoscience Department.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: You you talk about you, I mean you had a lot of really prolific people um in your department that were fracking experts and and were kind of like they made that transition back and forth from industry to academia.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that brings up a really good point.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great transition, Chris, to say that I I do think entrepreneurs are here.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like there are entrepreneurship geoscientists, right?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've talked to them on this podcast, right?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: We we've talked to people who are entrepreneurs who are actually entrepreneurs, who are trained geologists, go out there and start companies, buy Brunton, invent a new Brunton compass and buy the company, Lauren Hirschap.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, entrepreneurial geoscience.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: So people are out there for sure.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: There are consultants.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: How many people either it's like uh you know a faculty member who has a little consulting side gig or they go work and build some uh hydrology consulting company on their own.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: We have risk takers, we've talked about that.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Geologists are kind of explorers, research is a very entrepreneurial activity in many ways, and so they are here in our field.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, why the cultural disconnect?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, like what your thoughts can I ask you a question now?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like hold on, hold on a minute.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: First, I want because for people that are not seeing the image, we're talking about characteristics that would make a geoscience entrepreneur a good fit, right?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we're talking about consultants, risk takers, explorers, and researchers.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Do you are are you saying then that these are characteristics that a good entrepreneur would have to have?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is that what we're saying?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm saying that these are our directions.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or these are people who are entrepreneurial.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think I don't think they're required for entrepreneurship, but I think that they're these people, we have environmental engineers, we are uh environmental consultants.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Consultants.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: There are explorers in geoscience.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think geo geoscientists are kind of a risk-on type people.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Go hiking, go rock climbing, that kind of like risky type people.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are researchers, not everybody, obviously, but many will be.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I think those are entrepreneurial activities.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so my point is here, I think there are a bunch of entrepreneurs that come out of the geoscience departments around the world and go start companies and do this stuff.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: We just don't talk about it, we don't recognize them.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious why.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: My question for you is you know, we started out by saying, yeah, there's this disconnect.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: We don't really affiliate geoscience with entrepreneurship in the same way that we would with computer coding or biotech.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: We associate those with startup kind of culture, even though all these they do exist.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: So they're there, but we just don't recognize that they're there.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that is?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that we as geoscientists don't really affiliate or don't really appreciate entrepreneurship in the in the way that other fields do, maybe?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh do you have anything?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is philosophical, right?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: I do just or just your general take from your experience.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's because the problems that we are facing now, the surface problems that we have, whether it's rare earth elements or carbon sequesteration, all the all these various things, they're so new.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: You think about I I can't help but think about biotech.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you've got these chemical engineers and and biologists working in labs trying to solve problems that have been around for a long time.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good point.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: It seems to be a really natural thing.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas this is just starting to make a splash, these issues.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I see.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you're saying, you know, climate change uh has gotten more obvious more recently, more impactful more recently, perhaps.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um now the rare earth elements is is you know really that's a really good idea.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think you're probably ready to do that.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's just a time thing.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I think.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's really interesting.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my thought.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I think you're totally right.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't thought of that before, but I think you're absolutely now that you're saying it, I think you're absolutely right.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's definitely part of it.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think from from my personal experience, I'm I'll speak personally now.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um I in graduate school, I was so anti entrepreneurship or business or even economic geology.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'll be honest.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, I had a bunch of people, uh friends of mine who were doing economic geology degrees, and I was always kind of a little bit poo-pooed it um because I was doing, you know, studying the early earth, and it was really blue sky science versus applied science.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: There was a real difference in my mind between those two, and I think probably even if I'm if I'm honest with myself, a bit of a lack of respect for the applied science stuff.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: As uninteresting.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of that had to do with the way I got into geology.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I got into geology because it was cool.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was fun and really cool.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if I wasn't doing the most fun, most like coolest thing, then I didn't care.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like it didn't, that's all that's the only thing that mattered.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is it cool and fun?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Was is it cool to study the oldest rocks in the world and fun to do that?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not like, is it societally relevant?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: That didn't really matter to me.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And or and even less what even less mattered to me was like, can I make a bunch of money or I have to interrupt you because I we had discussions and I don't know if you remember this or not.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but this goes way back to when you were in uh grad school.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: You asked, we we talked about this, whether, hey, is this important?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Who cares?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you were struggling with this, you know, 15, 20 years ago.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: You you were actually grappling with this issue.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think for me, Chris, that happened.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that always happens to graduate students.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, every PhD student when they they have some dark time period where they're like, what am I doing here?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Writing nine months and writing writing my thesis for this long.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that was part of it.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think that that probably those conversations were probably the start of my mindset shift to to where we are today, where I'm like super pro entrepreneurship, super pro business creation.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I see the value in it.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a whole bunch of factors, I think, for me personally, that have bled into that have led to this shift.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them are, as we discussed, you know, 15 years ago, kind of a lack of maybe satisfaction with just the pure blue sky science and only doing that.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Part of it is is you know the people in my orbit.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've met new people who are doing interesting stuff.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a new appreciation for the people out there building businesses and and doing really cool stuff.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I've also got a new job where it's like I'm a professor at a big state university.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be societally relevant.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: I need to be doing societally relevant stuff that I can say, here's why your student should come to Penn State, get a degree with me, whether it be an undergrad, a master's, or PhD, and and say I can set them up for a really good life and a really good job.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: I need to be able to do that.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: I totally agree with that.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's that's weighty to me.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, we well, I agree, and we need to talk about this.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's our next it has to be our next segment here because I wanna I want to know how to go about this.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna ever go out and change the world doing pie in the sky stuff, really.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it needs to be deliberate.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: You see a problem that is societally relevant, now you're gonna go solve that problem or be a part of the solution to that.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Be part of the solution for sure.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think Chris, can we can we can we talk a little bit more about the potential problems?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a couple interesting studies that have come out.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did this test when I was uh the the origin you know story of this whole series was I was giving a talk, a lecture at this this university, Dickinson College, and I wanted to put this together, this this like idea, kind of summarize these things.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So what I did here, Chris.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I remember this discussion, by the way.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: A little backstory on this.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you thought this was gonna be an episode.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we're on episode five now.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at that and I'm like, Jesse, we it took us like an hour and a half just to like go through it and have a brief discussion.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, this would be an easy episode.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you're just like, you are an idiot.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: What is going on here?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's where you're it's just like you're an idiot.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: So as part of this thinker, see this is really interesting here.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hold on, let me describe it first.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let me describe this first.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: What I did here is I just went to Chat GBT, this is the 401, 4.0 version, and I typed in draw me a picture of a geoscience consultant, and uh, this is like a dude with a wide-brimmed hat, you know, with a backpack on some big valley taking notes with like a rock hammer.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then I typed in geoscience entrepreneur, and it's uh some guy with a sport coat on and jeans with like some startup ideas in a laptop in some fancy office with some geoscience stuff drawn on the board.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: To my mind, it's just like incredibly inaccurate.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and probably represents Well, I don't know about that because we no, I don't know about that, Jesse.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's we could name the geologic consultant on the left there.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: We could name that person Chris, and then the person on the right is definitely uh the assistant to the associate professor Jesse over there.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: So yes.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh fair enough.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Draw Chris Bullheis, this dude on a rock dude on some outcrops taking notes in a beautiful cemetery.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Ruby Drunk in yes.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, these these things, these highlight all of the I mean, it well highlights all the biases involved in AI, stereotypes.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean massively inaccurate stereotypes.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And all the problems with, you know, whatever, a generative AI kind of producing some of these things.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, but the point is that there's a branding problem here, I think.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's a branding problem that these are so inaccurate in their description of our sort of mental model of what geoscientists and entrepreneurs can and should be.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that there's so much broader spectrum of of people, of types of people, of types of jobs, of where they do those jobs, um, that it's a really, really exciting space that those these images don't really convey.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: So before we kind of have this discussion about what to do about this, I guess, uh I just want to highlight that there are there were two really studies, put big studies put together by the big funding agencies and big societies for for geoscience in the United States at least.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: One was a community report by the American Geophysical Union that was funded by the NSF and other entities within NSF that was talked about advancing entrepreneurship in geosciences.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Another one was the Geological Society of America in partnership with NSF, put together a presentation on geoinnovation entrepreneurship.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And both of these things, Chris, it was really, really interesting to read these things.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: That you came away reading these.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: I put some summary points here on this slide, but basically the conclusions was that yes, entrepreneurship is not as intimately linked to the geosciences as we think it should be, or as society probably needs it to be for the future.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what can we do to change that factor?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: First, what are the problems with that?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the things that they highlighted were just the systems don't really support entrepreneurship.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: A culture discourages businesses and applications, and that is one for me that that uh pings a flag for me that yes, that one rings really true.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: How?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um so what I think, Chris, might be you you made a really good point about the time horizons here that these problems are relatively new in the public mind, which is totally right.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's another aspect of this that the industries of geoscience are often extractive, mining, oil and gas extraction, and therefore perceived as default bad.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think there's a business equals bad, business equals bad in geoscience, or business equals impure.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe bad is the wrong word, but impure is another way to, or selling out or something like that.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas pure research for fun or pure fun geoscience is going out there and hiking or going out there and doing research or going out collecting minerals, like they're two different minds, two different viewpoints.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the one that I had in graduate school, especially early on in graduate school, is like business extraction is impure, research, blue sky science is pure, fun, interesting, you know, learn about the earth for the sake of it.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so that to me was one that really resonated.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, go ahead.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Another thing on is you know, that they came up with is that their learning experiences when you're a student in geoscience, they don't develop any entrepreneurial skills or mindsets.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know how that happens.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what that looks like.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um it is really in it's a really good point, Chris, because there's other things, you know, okay, some of the other issues, issues with intellectual property, historical challenges of equity and and justice, right?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: There clearly geosciences is is a bit um historically, you know, white male, like many of these science things are.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's challenges with that.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: We need to broaden the access here, a lack of business and interdisciplinary networks, and then this academic versus entrepreneurial mindset.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're two different things, and they never do the two cross-pollinate, and then this conflict between extractive industry and social responsibility.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, on to what to do about it.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Can I ask you a question?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: So would there be an avenue for a new class at where I work that incorporates entrepreneurship and geoscience or science just in general?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Man.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: What would that look like?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, you've built it's hard for me to say.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: I uh you've built a really you know prolific geoscience program uh that students can take a whole bunch of different classes that are outside normal high school uh class course loads.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's hard to map it's hard for me to see to know what Hudsonville could do versus what your average high school could do.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well I want let's talk about me.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: What what can I do?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, what can that look like?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Chris, I what would to me the answer is just exposure.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's just simply exposure.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's that people don't know what cool stuff there is out there that other people are doing and aren't exposed to those people to understand what their life is like as a geoscience entrepreneur.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So in your class, you have a year to do what takes a semester in college, and so you have a little perhaps a little extra time.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: What if you just had some of these entrepreneurs zoom into your classroom and answer questions and talk about their journey and say, here's my path, here's what I'm doing, here's how we're successful or not successful, here's some of the challenges, just to expose your students to like there's people with these degrees going out and building companies.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I uh to me that's so it's as simple as exposure, or you know, that's one avenue at least.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay, that's interesting.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so because you you said something before, and I want to just come back to that because I have something to say about it.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: You said that your exposure to geoscience, and it was the same thing for me.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: You went into it because it was just freaking awesome, it was cool, right?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that's such an easy sell, and that's what I do.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: I do that with my students.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: I just bring, let's learn about this amazing planet that we live on.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: How can we all not get excited about that?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't understand.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: So when people are like, I don't like rocks, I don't like you know, all the I'm like, I don't get that.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't have to be an either or.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't I'm gonna go into it because it's pie in the sky, it's cool, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go do just you know, research for the sake of doing research on on some obscure topic, or I'm gonna do something that's societally relevant.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's not one or the other, they're not exclusive.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I you can go into it.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, Chris, you and I went into it because it's cool, but now it's important.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you can go into something because it's cool and important.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think we should try and make geoscience the new biotech.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Use biotech as a model for that.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, vaccines, developing a vaccine for COVID, that's important.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, the science behind it's probably pretty cool if you're in that space.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Cancer drugs or cancer treatment, that's important, and also pretty cool if you're in the science of that, right?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think geoscience is that for the model, we just need to be louder about the problems and and probably louder about the possible solutions, the very exciting possible solutions here that are intimately linked to geoscience knowledge and a geology understanding, a geological view of the world, even.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: To me, that's like a simple, easy task to do along with the everyday stuff we're already doing.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just a little extra add-on by talking about those things and saying that.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, kind of a few of these things that that stood out as solutions.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Deliver business knowledge and curriculum, certification programs and geoscience entrepreneurship.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Those are like things we've kind of talked about.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: The certifications.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um hey, come to Penn State and get a minor in energy transition entrepreneurship, then.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I'll direct you.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be the new director.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'll you'll be the assistant to me.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Who's the student of the class?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Good stuff.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're my little buddy.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: So uh what do you um back to your your kind of maybe internal conflict to kind of bring it more personal?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do you feel, Chris, that you teach from such a personal level, and I I do too as well.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel that you need to go do something, go be entrepreneurial in order to teach it?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or does I mean I would look at you and say, yeah, you're pretty entrepreneurial.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you haven't created businesses, but you've run this summer science program, which is outside of normal, which is very, you know, you you built it or you didn't build it, but you you heavily modified it and made it your own.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: I did, yeah.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you've changed the tons that is effectively you now.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess we'll give our little buddy Andy a little credit too.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: But but you, you know, you you've run this for a long time.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: You you know, you've built things.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: You built the astronomy class, you built the geology class, so you've built things, you're a builder, and that's the same thing as an entrepreneur.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: So just with different goals and different metrics in place.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I would look at you and say, You should feel no problem teaching this to students.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm curious what you how that lands with you.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I feel uh here's honestly how I feel that all I can do is teach.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't I don't feel like I could ever go out and into the business world.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I just I I have no I don't I don't know.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have a drive, you don't have a passion for it.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: You don't you don't care.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's it either, though.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's more like I feel like all I've ever done, I've been a teacher and I've been creative within my field.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've done things that other people don't do, but it's all related to my field, and then the idea of branching off and doing something else is scary, it's intimidating for a lot of different reasons because it's just like that's it's not what I have done.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think that and I think that might be um I wouldn't say that's not part of the problem.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the wrong phrase.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I think no, that might be.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: I it might be.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say that's a common attitude, I think.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think that's a common attitude in amongst a lot of different professions in a lot of different places that like you know, you the path, I'm gonna do the path, and that's the thing, and and I'll I'll iterate within that that thing.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: But you have, you know, you have built stuff, you have taken stuff and changed it, you have built stuff from scratch to great success in many of these things.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how you've won the national teaching awards for the geo geology class that I took, and and so I think those skill sets, and I this is related to the the research stuff.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think getting a particular PhD and building a research group for me personally has has given me confidence in this entrepreneurial space.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: I have some of these company building things I could go out and do, and that I could it, I've I've talked to startup companies.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm you know, kind of uh advising some people and on the or playing the role of a pseudo-advisor, and I think it's in it gives me confidence in that space that like it's really just problem solving.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a PhD is a degree in problem solving, and all this experience, you get experience and that the the skill sets overlap, but it's mainly about doing it, I think.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's mainly about going out there and thinking about doing it.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not everybody has to be an entrepreneur, that's a really unhealthy environment if everybody's trying to be an entrepreneur, but we need some and we need some more geoscientists.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be great, Chris, if people in your class got exposed a little bit to it so that they will go to college and start pursuing those connections.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: They go, we we have like our alumni who come to our department, and a lot of them are entrepreneurs, a lot of them are very wealthy entrepreneurs, and I think that's a really good thing for students to see.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Look, there's a geologist there who got rich.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you make more geologists.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like say you're right, you know, show make some rich geologists, and people be like, oh, wait, that's I want to do that, I want to be that.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: I have been sitting here stewing since you said it.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: I am like I I'm seriously, I I'm gonna have a conversation at seven o'clock tomorrow morning with my boss.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm gonna ask for more.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ask for more time.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna ask and see if there's a way that I can get weighted grades in my class.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean it's an AP class, it just doesn't have the AP title because there isn't one.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um I need that to get more uh to get more and to incentivize that and then like if I get more time, then what do you mean you learn more time with the students?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're in trimester schedule, so I get two out of three.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and do AP classes get three trimesters?
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: They get three trimesters?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh really?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's interesting.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but they also get a weighted GPA.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were Jesse, we you know, this is a little off topic, but it but it's not, I guess.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, we were talking about um or I was talking to Andrew about his grades when he was in high school, and he was like ranked 11th in the class.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: You guys had a decent sized class, and he had a 3.92.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have uh 125 kids out of almost 600 that have well over a 4.1 GPA.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, don't get let we can't get started on grading.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, no, I'm not, I'm not doing that.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not actually doing that.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that wasn't, I mean, that's a whole separate discussion.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: We've kind of kicked that around before, but that's not my point here.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: My point here, though, is that our school weights AP classes, and so they're graded on a five-point scale.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: So oh, I see what you mean.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you know what I mean?
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and so that's how you you get these kids that just load up on AP because it boosts their GPA.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: GPA boost, yeah.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, gotcha.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we have, I mean, Jesse, but I think I know what you're saying with that, you know.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, uh to get it.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I've been stewing on.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: If I get more time, I can easily add a component like this that that would be very, I think, beneficial to the people that I am putting into the geoscience field.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because the last thing I want to do is have kids go in there and that or students go in there and get when they graduate four years later, they're like, all right, what's next?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: They've got to be thinking about that before.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't have to be go build a company.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's this great phrase called intrapreneurship, which is just Yeah, right.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Go it's re research within a company.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you go work for some company and you're the you're the skunkworks, you're the person who's who's helping, you know, pushing the limits, changing things, making modifications.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically seeing the world and seeing room for improvement.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's or consulting is is kind of that role too.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: But taking uh taking initiative, not not just seeing problems, but taking initiative to solve the problems.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: That I think is a really big, really valuable skill set that that I think would serve students well anywhere they would go, basically.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree with that set uh statement wholeheartedly because we were all right.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: You can you can cut this if you want, but I was having a discussion because in my school, they in between classes, they always do announcements, and every day then I get upset five times a day because I can't even hear myself think when the announcements come out.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's blaring in my head.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like there has to be a better way to do this.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: Can we stop doing this?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I can't take that to anybody if I don't have a possible solution.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's do this go back.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: I can't I'm just not gonna go bitch to somebody and say this has got to stop unless I have a problem or uh unless I have a solution to that problem.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: And absolutely, absolutely, that's exactly right.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to hear complaints, everybody wants to hear solutions and ways to improve it.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do that, you're gonna people are gonna like you.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: So uh Chris, how so okay, to to wrap this up, do you just to kind of summarize?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my my feelings I spent all this effort putting this entrepreneurship and innovation minor program on the energy transition together.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited about this space.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of touched on it.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love the startup space, I think it's really interesting.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: I could definitely see a future in which I go work for a startup at some point and I'm you know either that remain as a professor or take a leave and go do that for a little bit and come back, or or just go do that.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I I think that for me personally would be a rewarding path.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think we could solve this this really branding problem?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: I view it as a branding problem.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: That we don't we don't think of geoscience and we think of company building or new exciting company building.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas tech we think of that, whereas biotech, we think of that, whereas there's a you know, fill in the blank, there's a bunch of different science fields where we think of that.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think that it that has to happen in undergrad at university, to be honest with you.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, I'm a part of that, even though I don't teach at university, but I send a lot of kids there and they get they're getting a university level intro to it.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so I feel I feel a responsibility to do something about this, starting with me.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it I think it has to start because you know that intro class, Jesse is the most important class they take, I think.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: Gets them in.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe some people just get offended by me saying that.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think that it's also the hook, though.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's what gets them into it, it's what gets them excited, and then just hopefully they don't lose that along the way.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: I agree completely.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, don't lose it along the way.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: And keep keep chasing experiences, chasing exposure, keep trying different things and and keep talking to everybody, keep an open mind.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: That was one thing that I did not have in graduate school when I was yeah, when I had this coordinated review, I did not have an open mind about this test.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: We weren't necessarily brought up that way.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's that's that's yeah.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think um, you know, but at least I'll speak for myself.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was not, uh looking back on it, you know, I I kinda I do come from a line of entrepreneurs.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: My grandfather started a lecturer company, my dad now you know has this little consulting company.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: I do have a a significant entrepreneurial lineage in some way, shape, or form, which I think maybe you just did not recognize until later on in life that, like, oh wait, this is in the blood a little bit.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: My dad was not.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: My dad had the same mindset as I have, which is I I'm built to be a teacher.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I do.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think I gotta, I gotta, I don't know.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you need to counsel me a little bit on this, I think, Jesse.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Chris, I need to here you come to Pennsylvania, we'll have whiskey sitting on my my my uh you know screened in porch or our deck, our rooftop deck, uh looking out over the the mountains, and we'll uh we'll we'll stew on it.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, definitely gonna make that happen in the next few weeks.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would uh how about uh Chris?
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to put out a call to any listeners or or if listeners who know people.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a geoscience entrepreneur or are thinking along these lines or have some experience in this space, please send us an email.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear feedback on anything and any anything, criticism, constructive criticism, things we missed, things we should talk more about, data sets we should look at.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is very much we are actively learning in this space.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is just a a collection of ideas that we're talking about, and we're iterating on them and trying to build them out.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: So please send us an email, things like what classes you would have loved to have back in the day, what lessons have you learned that you you want students that you you know your younger self wished you knew, people who you think we could interview who would be great to talk about this kind of topic.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: Please send us an email.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: We would love to hear about that.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: Good point, Jesse, because I feel as though in this episode we pointed out the problem, but we're not really we don't really have a solution yet.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're not following our own advice.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to not coming up with an answer, really.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: But it starts here.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: It starts here.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: You have to identify the problem before you can work on the solution.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm okay.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh but yeah, yep, yep.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, I agree with that completely.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: All right, hey Chris, uh, I think that's a wrap.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow us on social media, we're at Planet GeoCast.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Send us an email.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's a contact us link at our website, planetgeocast.com.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, if you're on Spotify or YouTube, follow us, leave a comment.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: We love hearing comments.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh give us a like, subscribe, and a rating and a review.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Cheers.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: Peace.